The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, says the
Apex bank has no immediate plan to devalue the Naira despite the
continued downward slide of the Naira. Emefiele said this after the
meeting of the bank's Monetary Policy Committee yesterday January 26th.
"We don’t have any immediate plan to devalue the naira. However, we are
already working on different scenarios; the models are being worked on.
We have them and as much as possible, we will look at
scenarios under different crude prices and we will continue to discuss
at management and monetary policy committee levels. We will try as much
as possible to continue to share our thoughts with the fiscal
authorities with the view to harmonizing our positions to ensure that
notwithstanding the drop in crude prices, that we are able to continue
to run government and do business. We are very conscious of this and we
know that we are at an era where the drop in or low crude price will
remain for a long time with us. It is not going to be like in 2008 or
2009 where it was just for about eight months. So far, we have seen this
for 14 months now and there doesn’t seem to be any light at the end of
the tunnel.”he said
He said Nigerians should brace up for a longer period of low government
revenues from oil sources due to the declining oil price
“The committee observed that the last episode of low oil prices in 2005
lasted for a maximum period of eight months. However, the current
episode of lower oil prices is projected to remain over a very long
period. Consequently, it is imperative to brace for a longer period of
low government revenues from oil sources, which would necessitate hard
and uncomfortable choices as the economy transits to more sustainable
sources of revenue, consistent with the economic realities and strategic
objectives of the country. In the circumstance, certain trade-offs must
be envisaged and duly accommodated.”
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