Elite out to discredit Buhari’s administration – Senate leader

The Leader of the Senate, Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume, on Monday disclosed that the bourgeois are on the move to militate against President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration saying their intention is to set masses against this administration.

Ndume in a chat with Journalists on the economic situation in the country explained there is deliberate attempt by elite to set this government against the masses since they have discovered the support base of this administration.

The Senator wondered what the price of dollars had to do with gari, maize and tomatoes that are produced locally in Nigeria.

According to him, the elite are deliberately sabotaging the Buhari administration ‎in order to make the All Progressive Congress (APC) government unpopular.

He explained that the Buhari’s administration has made significant achievement in the area of war against insurgency, war against Corruption and infrastructure decadence in Nigeria.


Senate Leader said,” if not for the saboteurs, Nigerians would have been reaping the dividend of electing President Buhari. Otherwise, what has the fall of Naira to do with millet, tomatoes and other local produced commodities?

“We are working hard on the 2016. Budget and in it President has included things that would enhance the living ‎conditions of Nigerians. We will pass the budget in March.”

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Governor Nasir El-Rufai,of Kaduna State yesterday said he has created over 125,000 direct jobs in the state within the past nine months. El-Rufai stated this during his sixth town hall meeting with the people in Saminaka, Lere Local Government Area of the state. He said the state school feeding programme which he introduced created at least 85,000 jobs for food vendors, their staff and supervisors. “The job impact of ongoing interventions is over 125,000 direct jobs in Kaduna State within less than one year of the APC being in office. The estimates of these include: School feeding programme: at least 85,000 jobs, including the vendors, their staff and supervisors. School uniforms:11,100 jobs, rehabilitation of schools:7,542 jobs, construction of toilets:6,285 jobs, solar boreholes:5,028 jobs, KASTELEA:2,550 jobs,waste collection:6,700 jobs, Science and Maths teachers: 2,300 jobs,” he said. The governor added that the state government is in talks with Dangote and Olam for integrated tomato agro-industrial projects around Galma Dam. He said Olam has also decided to build the largest poultry and feed-mill facility in Sub- Saharan Africa in the state.

El-Rufai, who was accompanied by the senator representing Kaduna-North senatorial district, Alhaji Suleiman Hunkuyi and other top government officials on a police helicopter for aerial view of the state, said operations against cattle-rustlers, kidnappers and other criminal gangs are continuing in the affected areas. “Our security agencies have better vehicles and improved communication infrastructure to respond to threats. Our internal security team, Operation Yaki, has been active in raiding black spots and preventing crimes, while responding more rapidly to robberies and other threats to lives and property.

While thanking security agencies for their efforts and service to our state, we ask our religious and community leaders to continue to preach peace and unity, promote tolerance, discourage hate speech and renew calls for increased vigilance in all our communities, “he said. He said Stallion Group will build a 10,000-hectare rice farm and mill in Kaduna to reduce the dependence on imported rice. “Other rice farm and mill projects are being implemented by many firms to utilize our zero-interest loans around the CBN rice anchor lending programme,” he added

CBN announce new N203 black market rate to Dollar

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is targeting a N200 to dollar exchange rate in the parallel market as early as next week, according to The Nation

The Naira which on Friday traded at N330 to a dollar in the parallel market is expected to appreciate speedily, as impact of the CBN’s measures to stabilize the currency volatility in the parallel market begin to materialize.

President, Association of Bureau De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON), said the N330 rate in the parallel market is an improvement from last week’s rate when the naira exchanged for N391 to dollar.

The strident calls by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and some foreign interest for Nigeria to devalue its currency and the artificial spike in forex rate created by Bureau De Change operators appears to have tanked. This has been linked to a complex and integrated currency management approaches deployed by the CBN.


According to a top source in the apex Bank, “The aim of CBN is to ensure that the divergence between the official and parallel rate does not exceed N3, so we are looking at a parallel market rate of N200/$ because the downward trend in the pressure on the naira will be sustained.”

“The CBN has the capacity to sustain the downward pressure and will deploy further currency management initiatives, while capitalising on fiscal policies of the federal government to remain in support of non-devaluation of the Naira. The current stand of the federal government on Nigeria’s legal tender is Non-Devaluation. It will be unwise for anybody to be hoarding dollars because we can assure you that Naira appreciation is going to trend upwards going forward.”

So far, the CBN in a bid to manage the pressure on supply has deployed over $11.7billion to support Agricultural Sector, SMEs, manufacturers and others. This has reduced patronage of black market by end-users and has forced rent seekers to dump the greenback thereby creating a dollar-glut in the black-market.

The source noted that it has been observed that most of the imports that were draining forex resources have since found local substitutes with attendant savings in forex and shortage of demand for the greenback, which was fuelling the pressure, this is also coming on the heels of the CBN instruction to commercial banks to publish allocation of forex to end-users, this has in recent times ensure that real sector of the economy and genuine users for education and medicals have been able to access forex at official rate.