Naira devaluation story is fake news- CBN

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The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has debunked the report that it has devalued the Naira to N630/$1 in the official market.

A national newspaper reported on Thursday on its front page that the apex bank had adjusted the exchange rate of the Naira to the United States Dollar in the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window of the foreign exchange (FX) market.

But reacting to the news, the central bank described the report as “fake news,” urging members of the public to disregard it as such had not been done.

The devaluation report comes just 48 hours after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu announced the Federal Government’s plans to unify the country’s exchange rate to stimulate the economy.

President Tinubu, in his inaugural speech as the 16th president of Nigeria, emphasized the need for a thorough house cleaning in monetary policy, particularly the unification of the exchange rate.

Reacting to the reports, CBN took to its Twitter page to deny the report sharing the screenshot of the Dailytrust newspaper report. The tweet reads: “CBN did not devalue the Naira!”

Meanwhile, checks show that the Naira on Wednesday, March 31, 2023 closed at the Importers and Exporters (I&E) window, where naira is officially traded at N464.67.

This is a 17 Kobo or 0.04 percent loss against dollar compared to N464.50/$1 it exchanged on Tuesday.

The naira’s poor performances as seen on the FMDQ securities exchange, occurred amid a 13.1 percent or $19.02 million rise in the value of forex trades in the spot market.

The turnover for the trading session stood at $163.74 million as against the $144.72 million recorded in the preceding session.

Further, a check on the CBN website interbank exchange rate shows naira closed at N461.6. Naira equally depreciated against the Pound Sterling in the interbank segment of the forex market on Wednesday by N2.64 to close at N574.37/£1 versus Tuesday’s N571.73/£1.