Naira Fall: CBN Blames Nigerians Travelling To UK, US For Schooling

Godwin Emefiele, Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says the number of Nigerians seeking foreign education is to blame for the fall of the naira.

Emefiele said this at the 57th Annual Bankers Dinner, organised by the Chartered institute of Bankers Nigeria (CIBN), in Lagos.

The dinner had the theme, “Radical Responses to Abnormal Episodes: Time for Innovative decision-making” was appropriate and well timed.

According to Emefiele, there was tremendous increase in visa issuances to Nigerians by the United Kingdom in 2022 alone.

The apex bank governor noted that the number of student visas given to Nigerians by the United Kingdom spiked from a yearly average of about 8,000 visas in 2020 to almost 66,000 in 2022, implying an eight-fold increase amounting to $2.5 billion yearly in study-related forex outflow to the UK alone.

He stated that the move had immensely put pressure on Nigeria’s foreign reserves and the Naira.

According to him, due to this and the need to increase forex earnings, the CBN and the Bankers’ Committee started the RT200 scheme in February 2022.

He added that the steady increase in headline inflation from 15.60 per cent in January to 20.77 per cent in September was consistent with global trends.

“Food remains the major component of domestic consumer price basket. The annualised uptick in headline inflation mirrors the 6.21 percentage points upsurge in food inflation to 23.34 per cent in September.

“During this period, core inflation also resumed an upward movement from 13.87 per cent in January to 17.60 per cent.

“In addition to harsh global spill overs, exchange rate adjustments and imported inflation; inflation was also driven by local factors such as farmer herder clashes in parts of the food belt region,” he said.

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