Almost every month this year, Nigerians on Twitter have been in a frenzy. They called out banks for yet another inconvenience caused by the inability to use foreign exchange within or outside the country.
This year, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has blocked accounts, stopped providing forex for importing some items, and even delayed exports. The latest is a restriction on International Money Transfer Operators (IMTOs) from sending funds to Nigerians in naira—causing some of them to stop their operations temporarily.
But what’s the CBN’s obsession with foreign exchange and why is it implementing these drastic changes now—a time when foreign exchange is difficult to find? We won’t defend the CBN’s moves in this article, but we would shed light on why foreign exchange earnings in Nigeria are unstable.
It all starts (and ends) with our relationship with the rest of the world. It is what happens when the
