The President of Dangote Industries Limited, Aliko Dangote, has described the devaluation of the naira by the administration of President Bola Tinubu in 2023 as the biggest problem his company and many other businesses faced in 2023.
Floating the naira allows forces of demand and supply in the market to determine its value.
This was disclosed recently by Dangote in his speech at the Annual General Meeting of Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc, noting that many businesses were grounded by the policy, according to Sahara reporters.
Dangote explained that due to the depreciation of the naira, several manufacturers struggled and incurred losses in their operations.
He said, “The biggest mess created was the devaluation of the naira from N460 to N1,400.
“You can see that almost 97 per cent of companies in the food and beverage business, none of them will pay dividends this year. But we will try and get out of it.”
Major business owners in the country were adversely affected, particularly Aliko Dangote and Abdulsamad Rabiu, who jointly lost $5.85 billion in assets following the policy implementation.
According to a Bloomberg report in April, Nigeria’s foreign exchange reserves have been depleted at an unprecedented pace in four years.
liquid reserves have fallen by 5.6% since March 18, when the naira began to recover from a record low against the dollar to $31.7 billion as of April 12 in Bloomberg’s calculations according to CBN data.
The CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, however, said the shift in the reserve was found in “any country’s reserves situation, where for example, debts are due and certain payments need to be made, and they are made because that is also part of keeping your credibility intact.”
