How Osinbajo can save naira from depreciating – Okupe

Former Senior Special Assistant to then President Goodluck Jonathan on Public Affairs, Doyin Okupe, on Thursday advised the Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo to adopt Jonathan’s measure of saving the Nigeria from depreciating.

In an open letter to Osinbajo, the former Presidential aide said Osinbajo should adopt a crude-oil-swap arrangement to conserve foreign exchange.

He said despite the abuse of the arrangement by previous leadership of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, the government should fully adopt the crude-swap arrangement.

The former Presidential aide noted that the arrangement was a sustainable alternative to the current intervention of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, in the forex market because it would conserve foreign exchange.

The letter reads,”Nigeria is nearly totally an import dependent economy, we earned about N4.6 trillion from export of crude oil in 2015, while our total import bill was in the region of about N6 trillion; 30 percent of which was dedicated to the import of petroleum products. Actual figure was about N1.8 trillion or $5bn.

“It is obvious that if we can remove or substantially decrease this demand of $5bn from our forex pull, the value of naira will significantly appreciate further.

“Your Excellency, I want to submit that this is achievable through a responsibly and transparently organised crude swap scheme.

“I am not unaware that this administration has undertaken a limited crude oil swap arrangement, but this will not suffice. We need to carry it to the level at which we will not commit any significant amount of forex to import of petroleum products anymore.

“No doubt this option was also tried and to a large extent poorly executed and abused by the previous NNPC leadership. The errors in its manner of implementation can be corrected to give a major relief to the demand for dollar in our economy.