Naira Weakens at NAFEM, Gains at Parallel Market, P2P

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Nigerian Naira weakened by 4.5 per cent or N36.39 against the American Dollar at the Nigeria Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) as the Supreme Court affirmed the victory of President Bola Tinubu in the 2023 presidential election.

On Thursday, the apex court upheld the election of Mr Tinubu, ending months of legal battles over the presidential race.

The seven-member court ruled against the opposition’s challenges of fraud and electoral law breaches during the election. The cases were instituted by Mr Abubakar Atiku of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Mr Peter Obi of the Labour Party.

After the judgment, the financial markets, including the Nigerian stock market and the foreign exchange (FX) market declined.

In the official market, amid a relatively strong supply of forex, the local currency weakened to N837.49/$1 compared with the previous day’s N801.10/$1.

The supply of FX into the spot market increased by 13.02 per cent or $13.04 million to $113.22 million from the $100.18 million quoted on Wednesday.

However, in the peer-to-peer (P2P) window, the Nigerian currency appreciated against its American counterpart yesterday by N131 to close at N1,122/$1 versus N1,253/$1 of the previous day.

Also, in the black market, the Naira gained N5 against the greenback during the session to sell at N1,255/$1 compared with the preceding session’s price of N1,260/$1.

In the official market, the domestic currency closed flat against the Pound Sterling and the Euro at N974.45/£1 and N849.07/€1, respectively.

In the cryptocurrency market, Bitcoin (BTC) dropped 1.0 per cent to settle at $34,140.67 as interest that a US-listed spot bitcoin exchange-traded-fund (ETF) appears imminent waned.

Further, Litecoin (LTC) went down by 0.99 per cent to trade at $68.16, Cardano (ADA) dipped 0.9 per cent to $0.2849, and Ripple (XRP) recorded a 0.1 per cent slide to sell at $0.5506.

But Binance Coin (BNB) rose by 1.3 per cent to $226.02, Solana (SOL) grew by 0.9 per cent to $32.57, Dogecoin (DOGE) expanded by 0.7 per cent to $0.0709 and Ethereum (ETH) rose by 0.01 per cent to $1,795.58, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and Binance USD (BUSD) traded flat at $1.00 each.