Nigeria’s Buhari Says He’s Not Convinced on Naira Devaluation

LAGOS, Nigeria, Capital Markets in Africa — President Muhammadu Buhari reiterates that he’s yet to be convinced that majority of Nigerians will derive any benefit from a devalued naira, his office says in an e-mailed statement. Buhari says he holds same conviction on the currency as when he resisted its devaluation as military ruler in the 1980s. “I stood my grounds for the good of Nigeria”. After naira was devalued when Buhari was deposed in a 1985 coup “how many factories were built and how many jobs were created by the devaluation?”

It worth noting that President Buhari and central bank have refused to devalue the naira in the face of repeated criticism that a maintained currency peg since March 2015 is starving companies of FX, contributing to an economic downturn.