After MPC decisions, naira ‘dramatically’ recovers to N405/$1

The naira dramatically recovered on Wednesday to 405 per dollar, less than 24 hours after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) monetary policy committee (MPC) meeting.

In Abuja, the naira is currently trading between 405 to 410 per dollar, while the British pound is going for 520/523 — all at the parallel market.

For Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, traders are selling at 415 per dollar, and buying at 410. The pound and euro  were also going for 530 and 460 respectively.

On Tuesday, after the CBN MPC voted to keep existing monetary policies, Godwin Emefiele, governor of the bank, warned speculators that the bank had all it takes to sustain its prevailing interventions.

He said those who think the policy actions were not sustainable were on the wrong side of the bet.

“I am happy, indeed very gratified that those interventions have proved very positive. We’ve seen the rates converging and we are strongly optimistic that the rates will converge further,” he had said.

“The fact that we have done this consistently for almost four to five weeks should tell everybody or those who doubt the strength of central bank to sustain this policy that they are taking a risk and they will lose in this bid to want to place a wrong bet on the direction that we are going.

“The direction is that there is a determination to see to the convergence of those rates and with what we have seen so far, we are very optimistic that those rates will converge.

“It is a programme and I am happy to say that the program is looking good, in fact beyond our expectation and those who remain on the sideline doubting the level of CBN’s ability to sustain this policy are on the wrong side of the bet.”