The impact of the foreign exchange (forex) scarcity is biting harder, with the naira stooping as low as N73 to the dollar at the black market on Monday in Lagos.
Black market traders Monday morning revealed that a dollar exchanged for as high as N730 for buyers and N720 for those trying to sell.
The traders confirmed that there was a surge in dollar demand over the weekend and could worsen within the week.
Rates, yesterday were a 2.24 per cent loss in value for Naira when compared to N714 traders exchanging dollars on Friday.
With the current rate, the naira has depreciated by 29.20 per cent from N565 per dollar at the beginning of the year.
Nigeria’s currency has been on a free fall on the black market, but for Godwin Emefiele, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), an unregulated market is “a tainted market in Nigeria, where people desire to deal in illegal foreign exchange (FX) transactions including sourcing of FX cash for purposes of offering bribes, corruption. That is where they deal.”
CBN also advised Nigerians to resist the urge to succumb to the speculative activities of some players in the foreign exchange market.
Meanwhile, at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) forex window, also known as the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Rate Fixing (NAFEX), and the official market, naira appreciated marginally by 0.04 per cent as the dollar was quoted at N436.33/$ on Friday as against N436.50/$ quoted the previous day.
