SPECIAL REPORT: HOW PRESIDENT BUHARI SECRETLY BOWED TO IMF PRESSURE TO DEVALUE NAIRA

After months of insisting that he had no plans to devalue the naira, President Muhammadu Buhari has caved to pressure to change course; SaharaReporters has learned from an exclusive briefing by a few top aides of the president.

A day after the Buhari administration increased the price of the pump price of fuel by 67%, from N86.5 to N145 a liter, sources disclosed that Mr. Buhari has also agreed to demands by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that he significantly devalues the Nigerian currency.

Sources indicated that the naira would be pegged at N290 to one dollar. The current official rate is about N200 to a dollar.

Sources said Mr. Buhari and his economic team took the decision to accept the IMF’s terms for funds that the Nigerian government wants to access to bridge a critical shortfall in revenue occasioned by a drastic decline in oil revenues. An administration insider told SaharaReporters that Nigeria could receive as much as $3 billion in credit facilities from the IMF.

“The truth is that Nigeria cannot operate without sourcing credit from the IMF,” said one of our sources, an economic adviser to Mr. Buhari, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “And the IMF was adamant that we must devalue before they can discuss extending credit to us,” he added.
Curiously, administration officials took the decision to devalue the naira without the input of the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, another source revealed. An official of the CBN confirmed to Saharareporters that bank executives were kept in the dark about the discussions that led to the Buhari administration’s decision to devalue the naira. “Some of us here [the CBN] are not opposed to devaluation, given our country’s present circumstances,” the source said, adding that it was the CBN’s function to pilot Nigeria’s monetary policies.


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