All Progressive Congress (APC) chieftain, Mr. Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, has cautioned against the recent call by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo that the value of the Naira be further adjusted to align with “market realities”.
In a statement by his media office in Abuja, the businessman-turned politician argued that in the over three decades of continuous devaluation of the currency, the economy has neither been diversified significantly nor has Nigeria become an investors’ haven. He maintained that such a measure in the current circumstance could “only worsen things”.
Olawepo-Hashim added: “If anything at all, the country has almost lost her manufacturing sector and is fast becoming a dumping ground for products that are not necessarily of better standards than goods produced in Nigeria.”
The business mogul noted that “even the market fundamentalists at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are very cautious to push for further devaluation of the naira as well as other traditional policy cocktails of Brethenwoods financial institutions capable of worsening cost of living for Nigerians most of who are already desperately poor”.
According to him, since the introduction of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in 1986 and the accompanying currency devaluation, Nigerians have since seen the naira moved from $1 to N1 to $1 to N9; up to now $1 to N412 at the official window.