In an election year, the Central Bank of Nigeria is doing all it can to defend the nation’s currency and shore up its external reserves. Both are being achieved: it’s still about N155 per dollar; the foreign reserves have risen by 5%. Already, the CBN has cut currency traffickers to size. On the expiration of its deadline for bureaux de change operators to increase their capital base, July 31, the number of these operators is expected to have reduced to fewer than 1, 500 from almost 5, 000. This would mean less pressure on the foreign exchange demand.
A technocrat is at work at the apex bank. New governor G. I. Emefiele has shown that he is not interested in politics.
