Nigerian students who seek higher education abroad are to blame for the persistent decline of the naira, according to Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Godwin Emefiele.
The CBN Governor disclosed the information at the 57th Annual Bankers Dinner in Lagos, which was hosted by the Chartered Institute of Bankers Nigeria (CIBN).
The dinner’s theme, “Radical Responses to Abnormal Episodes: Time for Innovative decision-making” was appropriate and well-timed.
Emefiele asserts that the United Kingdom significantly increased its granting of visas to Nigerians in 2022 alone.
The governor of the apex bank noted that the number of student visas granted to Nigerians by the UK increased sharply from an average of about 8,000 per year in 2020 to almost 66,000 in 2022, indicating an eight-fold increase and $2.5 billion in annual forex outflow for study-related purposes to the UK alone.
He claimed that the action had put a lot of pressure on both Nigeria’s foreign exchange reserves and the Naira.
He claims that the CBN and the Bankers’ Committee launched the RT200 scheme in February 2022 as a result of this and the requirement to increase forex earnings.
He continued by saying that the headline inflation rate’s gradual rise from 15.60% in January to 20.77% in September was consistent with general trends.
“Food remains the major component of domestic consumer price basket. The annualized uptick in headline inflation mirrors the 6.21 percentage points upsurge in food inflation to 23.34 percent in September.
“During this period, core inflation also resumed an upward movement from 13.87 percent in January to 17.60 percent.
“In addition to harsh global spillovers, 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.