The foreign exchange issue in Nigeria, according to economist Dr. Onuoha Nnachi, is caused by dollarized corruption.
This was revealed on Tuesday by Nnachi, the managing director of the TTL group, in an interview with Channels Television that Daily Post was watching.
He attributed the ongoing decline of the Naira in the foreign exchange market to Nigeria’s high governance costs.
According to him, political factors cause the demand for dollars in Nigeria to rise at the end of the month.
He continued by saying that the political class is rife with “competitive corruption,” which raises the demand for money.
He claimed that the pressure on the naira would diminish if the government took steps to reduce the cost of running the country.
To address the FX situation, he asked the government to conduct ongoing forensic reviews of all public expenditures.
“The foreign exchange problem is caused by political demand for the dollar. Our corruption has become dollarized.
“We don’t just have corruption; we have competitive corruption. The Naira is under increasing strain as those in power compete with one another for possession of the greatest home, the longest convoy, and other things.
“I can support that with convincing evidence. I’ll give you a simple illustration: Around the first week of last month, I had to buy the dollar I required at the open market for around N800 to $1; as of this writing, it has increased.
“It is a gradual process; if you do that (address the cost of governance) and accomplish it, the pressure may lessen dramatically.
“The 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly recently took place in New York, USA. On average, let’s suppose each person from Nigeria just had $10,000, we have four or five planes packed with an estimated 500 persons who went for the programme for social contact. Add the $5000 to the number of people. All of this took place inside a single month and involved political movements, he claimed.
According to OBASANJO NEWS24, the Naira has continued to lose value since the Central Bank of Nigeria floated it in the forex market in June. On Monday, the parallel market exchange rate was N980 to $1.
