President Muhammadu Buhari prior to his arrival back to Nigeria in Paris, France, said that he opposed a further weakening of the naira and openly endorsed the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN’s policy of restricting foreign-exchange trading.
Buhari, who was speaking with France 24 on Wednesday, maintained that further devaluation of the naira would be avoided as it would be unhealthy for the economy.
He said: “The naira has been devalued, it used to be around N160 (to a dollar), and now it is hovering around N200 and above, and I don’t think it is healthy for us to have the naira devalued further.
“That is why we are getting the Central Bank to make modifications in terms of making foreign exchange available to essential services, industries, spare parts, essential raw materials and so on. But things like toothpicks and rice, Nigeria can produce enough of those.
“We don’t need to give our hard currency on that, but those who insist of having toothpick from Europe or from China, instead of using Nigerian toothpick, they can go and source their foreign exchange.”
The Central Bank of Nigeria has imposed strict control on access to foreign exchange in an effort to prop up the naira, which has been sliding since the slump in global crude prices last year.
In June 2015, it restricted access to foreign exchange tor the import of 41 items only, ranging from rice and toothpicks, as stated by the President.