President Bola Tinubu says he chose to unify Nigeria’s official and parallel market foreign exchange rates to save the country from further financial bleeding.
The president added that he could have maintained the existing multiple foreign exchange rate regime and even benefit from it.
He said his decisions to unify the exchange rates and remove fuel subsidy were taken to block financial leakages and put the country on the path to economic recovery.
President Tinubu said he took the decision in the nation’s best interest just like he did with fuel subsidy removal.
The president spoke on Thursday at a reception organised in his honour by the Lagos State Government at the Lagos House, Marina.
“I could afford to share the benefit by participating in the arbitrage, but God forbid. That’s not why you voted for me,” Tinubu was presented as saying in a statement put out by Dele Allake, his media aide.
He said the decisions on fuel subsidy removal and exchange rate unification had to be taken early and firmly, as matters of principle and decisiveness, with the long term benefits to the nation’s economy in view.
“We will work together with an open-door policy. We will bring Nigeria from the brink. I want us to be partners so that we can rescue our land and make it a born-again nation,” Tinubu added.
