artificially low. And everyone knows how much our reserves can grow. I’m convinced that the demand management strategy currently being adopted by the CBN needs a rethink, and that is just my view,” he said. “Anyway, all those are issues that when the CBN governor has time to address, he will be able to address in full.”
Vice President Osinbajo also went on to claim that lack of access to foreign exchange for imports remains one of the key contributory factors to the current economic situation.
However, the following day, his media aide Laolu Akande clarified that the Vice President’s opinions did not call for the devaluation of the Naira, but instead advocated a forex policy that would curb arbitrage and corruption.
“Our attention has been drawn to statements and reports in the media mischaracterising as a call for devaluation, the view of the Vice President that the Naira exchange rate was being kept artificially low,” the media spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday. “Osinbajo is not calling for the devaluation of the Naira; he has at all times argued against a willy-nilly devaluation of the Naira.”
He went on to point out that Vice President Osinbajo was referring those who are able to obtain the dollar at N410 and then go on to sell it to the parallel market at N570. “It is stopping this huge arbitrage of over N160 per dollar that the vice president was talking about; such a massive difference discourages doing proper business, when selling the dollar can bring in 40 per cent profit,” Akande noted.
