Three friends visit a bank with each having $1,000 in USD dollars. They deposit the funds in their respective USD domiciliary accounts in Nigeria. When they check their bank accounts that night, they will each see $1,000. But it is important to note that the bank is not expected to keep the $3,000 in their vaults in perpetuity. Rather, the playbook is to have a model, assuming these three people do not come at once to demand for their $1,000 each, to keep say $1,000 in the vault, and get to work with the balance of $2,000.
That $2,000 could be given as dollar denominated loans to companies in both local and international markets. The bank could, where allowed, trade, and do many things with that $2,000. In an efficient banking system, banks convert Money into Capital, funding expansion for telco infrastructure, airport construction, etc.(Nigerian banks gave loans to Etisalat before it became 9Mobile; in that loan book, some dorm holdings were used.)
Where am I going? If you read that Nigeria has $30 billion in the dorm accounts, NEVER think that banks have $30billion cash in the vaults. I doubt if they have more than $5 billion in cash or near cash instruments. Most are outside Nigeria in correspondent banks and in investments. So, if anyone tells you that the Nigerian government wants to convert the funds to Naira, ask the person how? You can turn the wallets into Naira from USD, but that does not mean you have USD! Why do that when you can ask CBN to create more Naira?
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And most importantly, even if you take and convert $30 billion, does that solve the Naira gyration problem in the forex market? Possibly, the Naira will recover for three months and still crash because the fundamental problem has not been fixed, which is improving production, to deepen the balance of trade and payment for Nigeria.
Finally, those citing Lebanon, Greece, etc, are not fair. Greece placed holds on some Euro accounts so that people do not withdraw Euros to avoid bank runs; there was no currency conversion because accounts were in Euro. That is similar to what happened in Lebanon. Indeed, Nigeria can put a pause on you withdrawing dollars from your dorm account (I did not say it wants to do that) if it detects that many people want to mass-withdraw, to protect the banking sector. Even with that, that is not converting from USD to Naira.
All said, I think Nigeria is really under stress. It seems like years of university strikes have caused a massive knowledge gap in our system. Everything I wrote here was taught in a unit course I took in FUTO called Polity and Economy of Nigeria (GST 108) or something like that. A year later in GST 201, they taught something along the line of Nigeria and African Cultural Development. If NUC required that for engineering students, my assumption would be that every student takes something equivalent in the universities. The GST 108 was about the mixed economy of Nigeria and all the core institutions.
Good People, we need to educate right to avoid this misinformation in the land by clickbait journalists! It is unfortunate that people graduate from universities without understanding basic structures of the economy.
Let’s stop the panic and focus on how to #build. Give the manufacturers support. Give companies support. Give our working professionals support. And Naira will rise. I believe; Nigeria has tools to fix itself and we can do it. I invest in startups and I see how transformations happen. Nigeria has a promise!
That is not actually a fair comparison. Greece was on Euro and the bank accounts were in Euro. Greece was just trying to prevent withdrawals to avoid a big run. It is like CBN seizing your naira account to stop you from withdrawal Naira on panic. That is not the same as…
— Ndubuisi Ekekwe (@ndekekwe) February 3, 2024
Comment on Twitter
The naira problem is not caused by production problems alone. Nigeria has never been known to produce much, but all these crashes in the naira only began drastically since the beginning of the last administration. For example, in 2010, I could walk into any bank and change my…
— Unazi Ogah (@prophetUnaziO) February 3, 2024
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I was about to comment on knowledge gaps in the land, but you did justice to it in the full article. Please keep educating and sanitizing minds, your compatriots are very dangerous when it comes to self-sabotage, whether as a result of sheer ignorance or just pure cynicism. We do a lot of damage to Nigeria in the name of wanting to get one over political or tribal rivals, it is nothing short of lunacy.
There is too much ignorance on display across social media, both from the supposed educated people and those who ran away from school, the quality of reasoning is below par. People sow and harvest innuendo and speculation here, and then try to spread and infect their fellow vulnerable and misinformed bunch with same. It’s a disaster.
Let those who have knowledge and sizable platform relentlessly educate others, it’s either our schools did a bad job or people failed to attend classes. With knowledgeable and informed citizens, Nigeria will have fewer problems.
There is festival of ignorance in the land, and we have to combat it with whatever knowledge arsenals we can muster.
God bless Nigeria.