In the thick of the 2015 election campaign, a billboard surfaced in strategic locations across the country. Decorated with the logo of the All Progressives Congress (APC), it had the picture of former President Muhammadu Buhari and his running mate, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, standing side by side. The duo donned the now popular APC’s aso ebi with the bold message that read: N205 to one dollar? Not acceptable!! Vote Buhari/Osinbajo for President.
The message was very clear to Nigerians. The presidential candidate of the APC, who was challenging for the nation’s presidential seat in the 2015 election, was simply condemning the fall of the Naira to about N205 to the dollar at the parallel market at the time, though officially the nation’s currency remained at N197 to the dollar at the time.
If the fall of the Naira at that time was good enough as a campaign issue in the all-important election, it is a confirmation that the devaluation of the Naira is a subject that cannot be ignored whether in times of politics or governance.
The fact that the Naira denominates the essence of the living, and to some extent, the dead, makes it a subject of concern to the businessman, the politician, the farmer, and the artisan.
In times of election, the politician cries the loudest, as if he is the most concerned about the public good. That was what Buhari and Osinbajo did in 2014 and early 2015. But to show us all that there is always a communication gap between the campaign podium and the hearts of the common voters, the immediate past President did the opposite of what he promised when he won the presidency. Rather than return the Naira to the era before his predecessor, former President Goodluck Jonathan, when it officially exchanged for N150 to $1, Buhari took the Naira to unprecedented lows. He created ample opportunities for what the economists called arbitrage by creating multiple exchange rates ranging from N400 and N600 to the United States Dollar.
And following the exit of Buhari and the suspended governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Bank upped the game from where Buhari left it. In what was called an attempt to merge the official and parallel exchange rates, the value of the Naira took a huge tumble that has since become a roller coaster. These days, each emerging sun appears armed with the digger with which it digs a further step into the grave of the Nigerian currency.
The danger in all this is that many economic analysts who voice their soundbites across the popular airwaves have not seen the danger in the mighty fall of the Naira. They talk of easy buyer, easy seller mode, floating currency, I&E window, and all manners of emergings terms that show the common man that they were educated in the Havards of Universities and that they have taken the books of the World Bank, IMF, and Western theories to heart.
My problem with these so-called economic experts is that the same terminologies they bandy about to batter the Naira are never applied to the currencies of the Western powers, even when their economy is in recession. They said we should devalue the Naira when the price of the only product that yields forex for us is determined in Western capitals. They equally know, but choose to turn a blind eye to the fact that each devaluation comes with the misery of inflation and industrial unrest.
But the situation has not always been this bad for the Naira. In the good old days, the Nigerian currency was both a Tiger and a Lion rolled into one.
Top Yoruba musicians produced several orikis in tunes that celebrated the essence, power, and presence of the Naira in our daily life. Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey, who sang the “Naira and kobo la o ma na, 100 kobo is equal to N1…” to welcome the new currency into the nation’s fiscal lexicon, prayed that the currency will come in handy and that its season will yield good life to all.
Legendary Apala exponent, the late Haruna Ishola, in his usual moral muse, would tell his audience the unbreakable link between beauty and good character and then declared his readiness to spend big (N1,000) on a lady that combines beauty and good character. He said “bi obinrin ba dara to si tun ni iwa, mo le fi N1,000 fe.”( I can splash N1,000 on a lady with beauty and good manners.)
In the generation that came immediately after Ishola, the late Sikiru Ayinde Barrister eulogised the value of the Naira when he sang Matu Matu, akasu eko o koja one pound. (No matter how expensive, a wrap of pap is less than one pound). One pound to the musician at the time was equivalent to N2. Today, One pound is in excess of N2,000. The N1,000 Haruna Ishola sang about cannot buy a pack of cabin biscuits, the regular snack at naming ceremonies and child dedications of that age, and the N2 Barrister sang about can no longer buy an akasu eko.
The different songs by the veteran musicians above have depicted the life and times of the Naira. It started life as a young energetic lion, prowling across the jungle and taking on all comers. At prime, only the matriarch-the British pound was sacred. All other currencies took a huge bow before the Naira
But years have gone by and the once strong, old Naira is today donning the looks of the aged lion, whose date in the jaws of death are already numbered. It stutters about the forest at the mercy of hyenas and wild dogs. Its entire being today showcases a fast receding powerhouse, with the pitiful looks of the dying king of the jungle.
But the Naira is not as old as the British pound, which remains as solid as the Northern star. It is not as old as the dollar, whose aggressiveness has been most noticeable against the hapless Nigerian currency. It is older than the Euro, which has equally overtaken the Nigerian currency in usefulness. Something truly is amis with the Naira and the entire nation is a victim of that ailment. There is inflation and galloping prices of petroleum products, there is unmitigated misery down the social ladder.
There have been calls for proper diagnosis. Famous economist, Dr. O.A. Lawal and a few others, who have not taken in too much of Western economic theories, have sounded caution. They said we should adopt a managed currency policy and that the fixed rate should not be more than N600 to the dollar. They said that Nigeria cannot afford to float its currency.
They said floating the currency in the face of hawks who have stockpiled illegally acquired Naira and dollar via the Buhari/Emefielenomics would amount to suicide that the unseen hands of the illegal billionaires would continue to drag the Naira down. What we have seen in recent weeks completely agrees with the submission of these traditional economists.
It is now the right time that President Tinubu intervenes and stops the drift of the Naira before the akasu eko will speed past the one-pound mark.
