President Bola Tinubu has urged Nigerians to patronise made-in-Nigeria products and services to sustain the naira’s recent gains in the foreign exchange market.
The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, stated this while addressing State House correspondents at the Presidential Villa on Friday.
According to the presidential aide, the recent appreciation of the value of the naira against the dollar is a good development but not yet satisfactory.
Ngelale stated that the strengthening of the Naira was achieved through collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and other government agencies.
He stated that CBN and other agencies achieved this feat by dealing decisively with sharp practices on certain cryptocurrency trading platforms within the parallel market of the foreign exchange ecosystem.
Ngelale argued that a stronger naira is necessary for working citizens as it would complement the new minimum wage upon implementation.
He said, “I’m confident that Nigerians have witnessed 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 why His Excellency President Bola 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, President Bola 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 patronise and purchase made-in-Nigeria products across all value chains, across all sectors.
“There is an intentionality that we must have on this issue, and 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.”
Ngelalae said the president called for more collaboration from citizens and urged them to blow the whistle on persons seen engaging in practices that undermine the local currency.
He added: “To complement these efforts, President Tinubu is appealing to Nigerians to blow the whistle wherever they see any of these sharp practices taking place, to communicate with the agencies that deal with these issues directly.
“They must do so understanding that this is not a government versus malign actors’ issue. This is the Federal Republic of Nigeria versus malign actors’ issue, and the activities of these actors negatively impact everybody.”
“So all of us have to take up the mantle and agree that we will collaborate to deal with these issues.”
