Naira has appreciated against the dollar, exhsnging at between N790 and N805 to the dollar at the parallel exchange market on on Wednesday.
The crash from between N970 and N941 on Tuesday triggered a steady decline witnessed as from evening of Tuesday.
Whereas Daily Trust reports that this followed the news about a possible Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) intervention, which filtered through to the Bureau De Change (BDC) operators, THE CONCLAVE learnt that the Central Bank of Nigeria might have immediately intervened with millions of dollars to defend the Naira.
The CBN had earlier announced plans to take critical decisions to reverse the slide of the naira in the next few days, thereby resulting in significant losses to the speculators.
The acting CBN governor, Folashodun Shonubi, dropped the hint on Monday while briefing State House reporters after a meeting with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The CBN governor did not give details of the planned interventions by the nation’s apex bank.
THE CONCLAVE reports that the parallel market in Abuja is in confusion due to the sudden crash.
Operators who spoke in confidence explained that speculators are in a bind as they could not sell their dollars which they bought on Tuesday at as much as between N941 and N970 to a dollar.
With the crash, they have lost significantly.
The Bureau de Change operators are not buying dollars because as of the time of this report, the dollar had crashed to N790 in Abuja.
One of them said they had been turning down customers who wanted to quickly sell the dollar they had stockpiled for speculative purposes.
He, however, said that they were only willing to sell the dollars they had to Nigerians who came with Naira to buy dollars from them.
He expressed hope that the exchange rate may plunge to as low as between N600 and N690 in the next few days.
Whereas, THE CONCLAVE could not confirm what measures the CBN had put in place between Monday and now when the CBN governor, Mr Folashodun Shonubi, met with President Bola Tinubu on the forex crisis.
One of the BDC operators Wuse Zone 4 in Abuja told THE CONCLAVE that may customers are crying over their huge losses between Tiesday and Wednesday when they engaged in speculative buying, calculating that the dollar might exchange at over N1,000 and above in the next few weeks.
According to one of them, “The naira is appreciating massively. There is no standard around which to peg the exchange rate. That us why we have stopped buying dollars from people. We are only selling. And the exchange rate is hovering between N790 and N805 to a dollar.
“We expect that this will further crash. We are looking at parallel market rate of between N600 and N690 to a dollar.”
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