I briefed Buhari on CBN’s activities, Emefiele says

The governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, told State House correspondents yesterday that he briefed President Muhammadu Buhari on activities of the apex bank.

Our correspondent reports that it was Emefiele’s first time of addressing State House reporters since he became CBN governor in February, 2014.

But unlike on March 13, 2017, when Emefiele briefed the president, there was no photograph of his briefing to Buhari yesterday.

The CBN governor was brought to the State House Press Gallery by President Buhari’s private liaison officer (PLO), Shehu Usman Bello, for the interview.

The president’s PLO has, since last month, been bringing ministers and other government officials for interviews, with all of them telling journalists that they briefed the president.

This was happening amidst growing concerns that President Buhari had not been seen in public in recent times. Within the last one month, the president failed to attend three Federal Executive Council meetings.

Information Minister Lai Mohammed told journalists on Wednesday that the president was resting at home as advised by his doctors, adding that he would soon go back to London for further medical treatment.

But the CBN governor told journalists that he briefed Buhari yesterday and that the president expressed delight over the stability of the foreign exchange market.

Emefiele said; “Basically, as it is expected, what we normally do is from time to time to brief the President about activities about the Central Bank of Nigeria, particularly at this time as it relates to the efforts that the central bank is doing to stabilise the forex market.

“And we briefed him regarding the activities so far and he was very delighted to hear that the market is stabilising at the level that it is right now, and I am saying the parallel market which currently stabilises at between 380 and 385.

“There is no secret; it is about the fact that at this time, we have seen production of crude and increasing export of crude also. The fact that we have seen also crude prices oxilating to between 50 to 55 to 56; it has helped our revenue position and has also provided some ammunition for the Central Bank to defend the currency.

“Given what we have right now, the fact that the revenues are looking good, the state of the economy is good and I believe that we are going to pull out of the problem in due course.”

On why more funds were being injected into the forex market, Emefiele said, “Our responsibility as CBN is to do what we are doing at this time. Nigerians or importers, who need foreign exchange to do businesses need these foreign exchanges to conduct businesses. And given the fact that we are able to increase our EFEX revenues the natural thing to do is to make the foreign exchange available to those who need them to import or to carry out eligible transactions.”