The year 2020 is challenging across all domains in Nigeria. Covid-19 came and threw everything out of order. The escalating insecurity paralysis moved to another dimension. We experienced police brutality which remains a wound in the hearts of many citizens, well beyond the physical wounds. Then the Naira. Yes, Naira is falling like a domino with economic gravity doing its thing.
As the Naira pandemic unfolds, what can companies that need foreign currency for importation do? We are seeing micro-patterns, as I explained yesterday in Tekedia Live. Simply, some traders are banding together to fund Nollywood movies with the hope that those movies will earn decent income on YouTube via adverts. YouTube pays in US dollars and everyone wants to have a product that earns in foreign currency!
Unfortunately, that will not likely work. Why? YouTube devalues its own “metrics” more than even the Nigerian government does on Naira. On Dec 31 019, if you needed 1000 views to earn say $2, from Jan 1 2020, Google devalued, and that means you will need double the views (i.e. 2000 views) to earn that $2. By October this year, Google halved it again. Largely, Google does this and no one challenges it: you keep growing your audience but you keep making less money. On that construct, building to harvest dollars via YouTube ads may not work.
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Pure and simple, import dependent businesses in Nigeria need to ask for a new economic playbook to change the trajectory on the Naira. Unless that is done, nothing else offers a long term solution.
Where is Naira Heading to?
Where is this thing heading to? It seems by Dec 2023, Naira could be touching N800 per US$1 in the black market. That was my call in 2018. I also noted that by 2023, some commercial banks would be taken private, from the public markets. Unless we fix and bring stability on Naira, Nigeria has no game plan. By now, we ought to have called a national emergency on this paralysis. Yes, everything should be on the table to arrest the decay in our national currency.
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It is one thing to be messing up, and it’s a different thing to know that you are messing up; it’s not clear if our managers are aware of the latter.
Everyday, we keep discussing the fallen state of the naira, but no radical step has been put forward to reverse the fall, everyone is waiting for oil price to skyrocket, because our plan has always been no plan.
We keep relying on spent forces to lead us out of the economic quagmire they essentially put us in. If they know what to do, they would have done it since, so it’s obvious that everything in their heads has finished.
Hard and bitter reality.
Thank you Mr Ndubuisi.
As rightly said… There are no directions or practical plans to savage this mess.
I shiver to see 800N per dollar, what’s the way out of this?
Please let us talk – call Kemi Ajisebutu on 08179916481 with the subject: Nigeria Digital Musics Monetization
Only way out of this mess is Nigerians should start managing made in Nigeria products include our local rice and others and government should stop destroying illegal Refineries in the Niger Delta but encourage those Refineries they called illegal.
yes. the govt needs to encourage local tech, especially the refinery technology.
Yes, with YouTube, add incomes are devalued but there are better way to promote and monetize Nigeria Digital Musics to earn foreign exchange and create freelance Digipreneur Jobs for millions of youths. For free probono consulting call Kemi on 08179916481
Only way out for Nigerians is start eating and using made in Nigerian products but it’s a pity that Nigerians even preferred expired Thailand rice than our local fresh rice.