March 22, 2024
The Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the President, Ajuri Ngelale, disclosed this in a press briefing with the State House Correspondents on Friday, calling on Nigerians to support the initiative by patronising locally produced goods to further strengthen the value of the Naira and reduce hardship in the country.
Nigerian President, Bola Tinubu, has stated that the gradual appreciation of the Naira against the Dollar was due to a sustained effort to check forex volatility in the country.
The Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the President, Ajuri Ngelale, disclosed this in a press briefing with the State House Correspondents on Friday, calling on Nigerians to support the initiative by patronising locally produced goods to further strengthen the value of the Naira and reduce hardship in the country.
The President asserted that there was already a noticeable measure being taken by the regulatory body to firm up the nation’s currency, which has started to yield results.
He explained that his administration wanted to ensure that those industries and sectors that are massively employing people would be prioritised with respect to government intervention.
According to the statement, the plan has culminated in the approval of over N75 billion to be disbursed to 75 large-scale manufacturers across all states of the federation, noting that a larger chunk of the interventions would go to manufacturers who employ over 1000 Nigerians in each of their facilities and industries.
He noted that the objective was to see that large-scale industries do not just refuse to fire people but actively increase and expand their hiring.
He assured that the president was intent on increasing the spending power of the people and dealing with the issue of minimum wage.
He added that Nigerians should expect the momentum of the Nigerian Naira and its strengthening to continue.
The statement reads in part;, “I’m certain that everyone seated here and indeed Nigerians at large have witnessed the seismic shifts that have taken place within the nation’s foreign exchange market over the last several days and the strengthening of the Nigerian naira against the United States dollar.
“This is clearly the direction all of us have wanted to head. And we are very sober to the fact that this is no time to rest or to clap. This is a time to deepen our efforts to dig in and to work harder, which is why His Excellency President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has approved a series of interventions to ensure that we see a mass strengthening of the Nigerian Naira against all other global currencies.
“One, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu wants to communicate very clearly to our people, that there has never been a more important time in our history to actively agree together that we will patronise and purchase made-in-Nigeria products across all value chains across all sectors.
“There is an intentionality that we must have on this issue that we want a strong currency, we want the spending power of our people to go up. We want every naira and kobo we earn to be more valuable not just here. But when we travel abroad, the way to achieve that is by doing just this.
“In addition to that, Mr President beyond the appeal to Nigerians to actively and intentionally make that decision every day to patronise made-in-Nigeria products and services across the board, he is also wanting to ensure that Nigerians fully understand that the momentum that we are now seeing with respect to the strengthening of our currency is not going to slow down.
“The efforts that Mr President has put in place with collaboration with other agencies of government, as well as the Central Bank of Nigeria, in dealing decisively with sharp practices on certain cryptocurrency trading platforms, dealing decisively with sharp practices within the parallel market of the foreign exchange ecosystem that these things are now yielding fruit."