Forex crisis: I’ve approved N75bn for manufacturers – Tinubu begs Nigerians to buy local goods
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has appealed to Nigerians to patronise locally produced goods to further strengthen the value of the Naira and reduce hardship in the country.
He made the plea while explaining that the gradual appreciation of the Naira against the Dollar was due to his government’s sustained effort to check forex volatility.
Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, while addressing State House Correspondents on Friday, said Tinubu approved over N75 billion to be disbursed to 75 large-scale manufacturers across all states in Nigeria.
He said; “I’m certain that everyone seated here and indeed Nigerians at large have witnessed the seismic shifts that have taken place within the nation’s foreign exchange market over the last several days and the strengthening of the Nigerian naira against the United States dollar.
“This is clearly the direction all of us have wanted to head. And we are very sober to the fact that this is no time to rest or to clap. This is a time to deepen our efforts to dig in and to work harder, which is why His Excellency President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has approved a series of interventions to ensure that we see a mass strengthening of the Nigerian Naira against all other global currencies.
“One, His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu wants to communicate very clearly to our people, that there has never been a more important time in our history to actively agree together that we will patronize and purchase made-in-Nigeria products across all value chains across all sectors.
“There is an intentionality that we must have on this issue that we want a strong currency, we want the spending power of our people to go up. We want every naira and kobo we earn to be more valuable not just here. But when we travel abroad, the way to achieve that is by doing just this.
“In addition to that, His Excellency Mr President beyond the appeal to Nigerians to actively and intentionally make that decision every day to patronize made-in-Nigeria products and services across the board, he is also wanting to ensure that Nigerians fully understand that the momentum that we are now seeing with respect to the strengthening of our currency is not going to slow down.
“The efforts that Mr President has put in place with collaboration with other agencies of government, as well as the Central Bank of Nigeria, in dealing decisively with sharp practices on certain cryptocurrency trading platforms, dealing decisively with sharp practices within the parallel market of the foreign exchange ecosystem that these things are now yielding fruit.”
