Buhari, Emefiele meet over forex crisis

President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday met with the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Addressing State House Correspondents shortly after the closed-door meeting, Emefiele said their discussions centered on the state of the economy and the continued instability in the country’s foreign exchange market, which he said, had impacted negatively on the value of naira.

Emefiele said he also briefed the President on other sundry issues, including what the apex bank was doing to stabilise the foreign exchange market.

The CBN governor, who described the country’s economy as “looking good” with the rise in crude oil price “oscillating between $50 to $55 and $56” per barrel, said the development at the international market was a boost to the stability of the naira.

He said: “Basically, as it is expected, what we normally do is from time to time to brief the President about activities of the Central Bank of Nigeria, particularly at this time as it relates to the efforts the apex bank is doing to stabilise the forex market.

“And we briefed him regarding the activities so far and he was very delighted to hear that the market is stabilising at the level that it is right now and I am saying the parallel market currently stabilises at between N380 and N385.

“Our responsibility as Central Bank of Nigeria is to do what we are doing at this time. Nigerians or importers, people who need foreign exchange to do businesses…and given the fact that we are able to increase our forex revenues, the natural thing to do is to make the foreign exchange available to those who need them to import or to carry out eligible transactions.”