The naira closed at N461.76 per dollar at the Investors and Exporters window on Thursday, a N0.16 kobo drop from N461.60 traded in the previous session.
This slight drop came amid a viral story claiming that the Central Bank of Nigeria had devalued the Nigerian currency to N630 per dollar. The CBN has since denied the claim, labelling it fake news.
In a statement signed by its Acting Director, Corporate Communications, Isa AbdulMumin, the CBN said, “We wish to state categorically that this news report, which in the imagination of the newspaper is exclusive, is replete with outright FALSEHOODS and destabilising innuendos, reflecting potentially willful ignorance of the said medium as to the workings of the Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the exchange rate at the Investors’ & Exporters’ (I&E) window traded this morning (June 1, 2023) at N465/US$1 and has been stable around this rate for a while.”
Based on FMDQ data on Thursday, the naira traded lower at N464.77, from N464.67 it traded on Wednesday when the turnover stood at $163.74m and the highest intra-day rate was N467.
At the parallel market, checks with Bureau De Change operators at 21 Road, FESTAC area of Lagos Thursday morning revealed that the dollar was being sold at N740.
The operators also revealed they were getting more customers who wanted to sell their dollars rather than buy.
However, at the close of trading, the naira had weakened to N755, a 0.27 per cent drop from N753.
Nigeria has maintained multiple foreign exchange rates, which has created instability in the currency market, despite the CBN’s sustained efforts to defend the naira.
The World Bank has called for a unification of the exchange rates and Nigeria’s new president, Bola Tinubu, in his inaugural speech signalled his desire to achieve just that.