Nigeria’s Naira witnessed a significant fall against the U.S. Dollar during the week, trading at N780/$1 at the unofficial market, the black market.
The recent crash comes on the heel of the central bank’s announcement to redesign a portion of the naira notes.
On Wednesday, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) announced that it will redesign the N100, N200, N500, and N1000 naira notes and make them available to the public by December 15, 2022.
According to the CBN, Nigerians can visit their banks to deposit their old naira notes in exchange for new ones.
Following this news, instead of going to the bank, several Nigerians trooped to the Bureau De Change market to convert their naira denominations to dollars. Subsequently, the pressure on the naira forced it to N780 against the U.S. dollar at the unofficial mark
Our correspondent who was at the popular Wuse District in Abuja learnt that there were few numbers of Bureau De Change available to attend to the numerous customers.
Saliu Radda, one of the available Bureau de Change operators, noted that the demand for foreign currencies, particularly the Dollar is high. He stated that he has almost consumed what he has in his vault.
Similarly, another operator with the name Abubakar Ibrahim stated that many people are avoiding being caught up with the CBN policy to change naira notes. He added that most of those who are hoarding the naira are changing it to the dollar to be on the safer side.
It would be recalled that the Central Bank had clarified that the redesigned naira notes will help to curb hoarding, counterfeiting, and terrorism.
While speaking in Abuja, the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele noted that as of September 2022, a sum of N2.7 trillion out of N3.3 trillion currency in circulation is held by the public. This means that about 85 percent of the naira currency in circulation is out of commercial banks.
Investors King learnt that the last time the apex bank redesigned the naira note was in 2014 when the national bank changed the design of N100 note to commemorate Nigeria’s centenary celebration.