The Nigerian currency, naira has made an amazing recovery against the greenback as it fell below the N400 to a dollar mark.
The recovery is the best that the Nigerian naira has witnessed in about seven months as the greenback traded for N399 in Lagos and N395 to a dollar in Abuja.
The recent recovery inches the exhange rate of the local currency to the official rate pegged by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.
Recall that the last time the Nigerian naira traded below the N400 psychological barrier against the greenback on the parallel market was in August 2016.
Speaking on Naira’s recovery, a BDC operator attributed the rise in value to the increase of dollar in the market.
He said: “The BDCs are awash with cash. Remember that the central bank sold about $200,000 to each BDC at some point and they had also bought dollars at high rates which they hoarded, thinking that the naira would remain in a free fall.
“But with the CBN’s intervention, they are stuck with loads of dollars and little or no customers, so they have stopped buying dollars and are looking for avenues to offload what they bought at ridiculously high rates.
“Essentially, the speculative attacks on the naira has come back to haunt them and they’ve got their fingers burnt.”