Naira/Dollar rate: ‘The political class has to get together and realise that their country is about to die’ – Pat Utomi

Prof. Pat Utomi has warned the Tinubu administration to take caution in how they run the current decline in the value of the Naira.

Since the announcement of the removal of subsidy by the president of Nigeria, Bola Ahmed Tinubu on May 29th the Naira has lost 40% of its value in the exchange market causing more hardship for Nigerians.

As of press time, the Naira goes for 1150/1200 to one US Dollar on the black market.

Professor Utomi says if the president as well as the national assembly do not focus on how to save the nation, ‘’Nigeria will die.”

“If people don’t see our national values, and commitments, rather than stealing our own, none of these will work. The political class has to get together and realise that their country is about to die.” He told Arise News on Monday

If Tinubu doesn’t recognize this, Nigeria will die. He doesn’t need a soothsayer. This is not business as usual. “

“We tried to build a foreign exchange market. Why was this foreign exchange market important to build?

“In 1993 I was at INSEA, a famous professor teaching a class on global financing looking at exchange rates. He looked at Asia and you could see a close flow between the purchasing power priority line and currencies. Nothing overshooting. You put Africa on the screen and one country just went off the graph. That country was Nigeria. Everyone laughed in the class.

“That made us struggle to create a proper market.  We went through a second-tier foreign exchange market and eventually built up the market, and what happened? The last central bank demolished that, just to allow some people to steal money. We are where we are and still surprised?”

Professor Utomi said he had advised the previous governor of the Central Bank Of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele to not put focus on fiscal policies but he rejected his advice.

“I can say I publicly confronted Emefiele when he began to deal with fiscal policy and told him ‘That’s not your business,’ and he said ‘But no one is doing anything.’”

He also stated that if the CBN governor, Yemi Cardoso is to succeed, he would have to take more action than making speeches and promises.