How Nigerians reacted to fake news on Naira dropping to N182/$1

intern

March 28, 2018 10:10 AM

The CBN injected a total of $210 million into the forex market to mop up liquidity and strengthen the local currency against other major currencies

The Nigerian Naira was on Tuesday misquoted for N182 per dollar at the market by Google exchange rate converter, a move that shocked local forex traders and holders of the greenback.

A screenshot of Google FX converter circulated on social media had put the rate at N182/$1 on Tuesday, March 27, 2018, but was later corrected as checks by Business Insider Sub Sahara Africa on Wednesday morning shows the rate is now at N360 to the dollar, the usual street market price.

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A development that caused panic and shocked across the social media platforms on Tuesday night.

Olalekan Oke, who freelances at Upwork, told Business Insider Sub Sahara Africa that the rumoured rate almost made him withdraw all his foreign currencies.

"I am shocked and couldn't imagine how the Naira would just wake up one day and changed

"We can not really trust our government but the appreciation is too big to be real," Femi Ogunjobi, program associate of an international NGO said.

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On the Importer and Exporter FX window, the currency depreciated by 0.05 percent to close at N360.23 to the dollar while the official market price rate closed flat at N305.65 to the greenback. At the parallel market, the Naira trades at N362 per dollar, the rate it has been holding in the last one week.

Meanwhile, the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, injected a total of $210 million into the forex market on Tuesday to mop up liquidity and strengthen the local currency against other major currencies.

Isaac Okorafor, Acting Director, Corporate Communications Department, CBN, who confirmed and gave the breakdown of the injection said: “The CBN offered $100 million to authorised dealers in the wholesale segment of the market, while the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) segment got the sum of $55 million. Customers in need of foreign exchange for Invisibles such as tuition fees, medical payments and Basic Travel Allowance (BTA), among others, were also allocated the sum of $55 million.”

Recall that Okorafor had in a CBN Tweet Meet, on February 26, 2018, said the CBN is seriously working to make the various forex exchange rates merge. He had also said the forex injections and interference of the Apex bank at the FX market worked according to plan and "we are sustaining our activities in the market to maintain stability and liquidity".

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