Naira is paperweight, says ex-presidential aspirant

Dr Sam Ohuabunwa, President of the African Economic Summit, has decried the fall of the naira, describing it as a paperweight when compared to other currencies.

Ohuabunwa, a former presidential aspirant under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 general elections, said this on Channels TV while reacting to the speech of President Bola Tinubu at the World Economic Forum in the Netherlands.

Tinubu had told the gathering that he took the decision to allow the naira to float in order to find its weight among other currencies, likening the aftermath of the decision to a plane with its two engines faulty.

Reacting, Ohuabunwa, the immediate past President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, said: “I think the world has always wanted us to do our best to make our currency much more easily tradeable but the truth of the matter is that the president said he wanted the Nigerian currency to find its weight and all of us saw that the Nigerian currency was just a paperweight.

“It went below featherweight, it was becoming a paperweight. It got to N1900 to $1 until frantic actions were taken to stop that weight balancing.”

“I believe currency is a commodity, it is exchangeable and it has its price and cost. If I want to do anything for my economy, I will want to do it at a time when I can defend my currency.

“At the time we did the floatation, we saw that it was a tough job defending the naira. It was tough.”

While acknowledging the good job done by the president and his team in stabilising the naira to an extent, he posited that Nigeria can not afford to continue borrowing to defend the naira.

He advised that efforts should be made to ensure that the naira doesn’t slide further by undertaking massive exportation, adding that the country should look towards intra-Afrcan trade.

Ohuabunwa also said investment should be made in the agricultural sector to improve the exportation of agricultural produce in order to improve the inflow of the dollar into the country.