By Fabian Ekeruche
The Naira on Monday gained 50k to exchange at N305.00 to a dollar at the interbank market, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.
The Nigerian currency had closed at N305.50 for most part of last week at the interbank market.
However, naira remained stable at the parallel market, closing at N465 to a dollar, while Pound Sterling and Euro exchanged at N565 and N490, respectively.
Trading at the Bureau De Change (BDC) window saw the naira closing at N390 to a dollar, CBN controlled rate, while Pound Sterling and Euro traded at N562 and N500 respectively.
Currency traders said that uneasy calm had prevailed at the market due to its raid by officials of the Department of State Security (DSS) in some parts of the country.
NAN reports that in spite of the raid, the naira had remained pretty stable.
Meanwhile, stakeholders expect the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting being held in Abuja to come up with policies that would lead to a greater flexibility of the exchange rate.
It will be recalled that the DSS last raided most of the Foreign Exchange hawkers across the country.
A senior official of the DSS, who confirmed the raid under condition of anonymity, said that they acted on directive.
“We are worried that some commercial banks’ officials were conniving with the hawkers in the markets to destabilise the government efforts to the sale the foreign currencies at cheaper rates.
“The economy is seriously affected by the actions of the illegal hawkers of foreign currencies.
“Our objective is to bring sanity in the system and let Nigerians procure the foreign currencies at government regulation,’’ he said.
He urged them to go and secure licence to legalise their business operations.
