Worry as Naira Now N1,234/$1 at Official Market, N1250/$1 at Black Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

There are fresh concerns over the recent decline in the value of the Nigerian Naira against the US Dollar in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM).

The local currency further weakened in the official market on Monday, April 22 by 5.5 per cent or N64.50 against the greenback to settle at N1,234.49/$1 compared with the preceding session’s exchange rate of N1,169.99/$1.

This happened as the supply of foreign exchange (FX) to the spot market continued to stay low, though the value of forex transactions slightly went up yesterday by 27.1 per cent or $23.49 million to $110.17 million from the $86.68 million recorded last Friday.

The recent downturn of the Naira comes after appreciating to a level where the Naira was briefly touted as the best-performing currency globally. This was bolstered by the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) FX reforms and strategic economic policies.

Last week, the exchange rate had strengthened impressively to around N1,072.74, with market traders projecting that it might even breach the N1,000/$1 mark, however, larger macro trends including a stronger US Dollar amid rising inflation have halted this.

However, the Naira improved its value against the Pound Sterling yesterday by N14.88 to wrap the session at N1,431.31/£1 versus the previous session’s N1,446.19/£1, and against the Euro, it appreciated by N10.02 to sell at N1,228.09/€1 versus N1,238.11/€1.

In the black market, the Nigerian currency depreciated against the US Dollar on Monday by N100 to trade at N1,250/$1, in contrast to the preceding day’s value of N1,150/$1.

As for the digital currency market, it was bearish yesterday as most of the benchmarked tokens tracked by Business Post declined, with Dogecoin (DOGE) down by 2.8 per cent to sell at $0.1583.

Further, Ethereum (ETH) lost 1.6 per cent to quote at $3,178.29, Litecoin (LTC) fell by 1.2 per cent to $84.72, Solana (SOL) recorded a 0.7 per cent decline to trade at $154.66, Binance Coin (BNB) shed 0.5 per cent to close at $602.31, and Cardano (ADA) decreased by 0.3 per cent to $0.511.

But Ripple (XRP) jumped by 2.1 per cent to $0.5502, and Bitcoin (BTC) rose by 0.1 per cent to $66,448.95, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) remained unchanged at $1.00 each.