In what should be viewed by every stakeholder in the growth and prosperity of the Nigerian economy as a most-elating display of responsibility and goodwill, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) recently issued a very timely warning to Forex speculators about the implications of its planned application of new liquidity flow measures and strategies in the country’s economy.
The apex bank, in a heartwarming classical display of custodianship of the country’s banking sector and the economy, warned the speculators to receive the new measures it is planning to roll out with care and adequately prepare for the impending losses they would consequently incur.
CBN’s Acting Governor, Folashodun Shonubi, told journalists after his meeting with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu that: “Some of the plans and strategies which I’m not at liberty to share with you, mean sooner rather than later, the speculators should be careful because we believe the things we are doing when they come to fruition may result in significant losses to them.”
Nothing could be a better display of custodianship and goodwill for every stakeholder in the Nigerian economy and, indeed, everyone concerned with the health and sound performance of every vital actor in the liquidity flow than this timely warning.
The meeting and the rather serious warning issued to the speculators are clearly expressive of the president’s and the apex bank’s positive and purposeful concern for the growth and prosperity of the economy and its relevant readjustments of fiscal policy and liquidity flow measures and strategies to the service of majority of Nigerians.
Shonubi specifically relayed President Tinubu’s grave concern about happenings in the Forex market and the implications of such happenings on the economy, especially how it impacts the lives of average Nigerians.
This implies an urgent and crucial necessity for relevant strategies and measures to be crafted to remedy the situation before it gets blown to a proportion very difficult to manage.
The president and the apex bank governor, consorting on this concern, took a broad view of the liquidity flow and, among others, dwelt extensively and intensively on the stabilization of the flow and what needs to be done to improve it in the market; and, also happenings in the various other markets, including the parallel market.
It is worth underscoring that the pivot of the president’s meeting with the CBN chief is the grave concern current frightening trend and impact of liquidity flow, which the Forex speculators highly manipulate and control, on the economy as its served the average Nigerian.
Consider, for example, the seemingly uncontrollable skyrocketing of the US Dollars against the Naira, resulting in serious, quite unprecedented hardships on the lives of the average citizens.
Wailings from majority of Nigerians about the unprecedentedly rapid increases on the prices of essential goods and services, plunging the citizens into severe hardships, seem unbearably deafening the ears of the president and every other well-meaning Nigerians.
The seemingly very urgent meeting of the president with the apex bank chief on a need to find a path out of the situation seems expressive of the just-three-months-old president’s resolve to hear nothing more of the wailings.
The CBN is the only government agency to console the wailing public, implement measures to assuage their hardships and, thus, ensure that the president, who should be purposefully engrossed in the thought of pulling the country out of the too-sticky mire of economic and security challenges, is no more sickened by any such wailings.
This has to be done for the country to grown and prosper on the scale of emerging internal and external realities.
The Forex speculators have to, therefore, shape up and adjust to the CBN’s new measures and strategies for the common good of Nigerians and for the sustenance and rapid growth and prosperity of the country’s economy.
Dambatta, a veteran journalist, writes from Kaduna via [email protected]
