EDITORIAL: CBN and the necessity of saving the naira, to save Nigeria

The 294th meeting of the policy committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), scheduled for Monday, 20 November, did not hold. Neither did the 293rd edition of the meeting. In September, when the latter edition was due, the CBN was going through an unprecedented change in its leadership. Until the CBN governor’s address to the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria’s (CIBN) 58th Annual Bankers’ Dinner and Grand Finale of the Institute’s 60th Anniversary last Friday, the apex bank did not, as far as we know, offer any reason for its failure to hold the meeting of its Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) this month. Understandably, the resulting information vacuum has been filled up with speculation. The word out through alternative channels claim that the delay in constituting the CBN’s governing board is the main cause of the MPC not meeting yet. Whatever the cause, the two months between the failed September meeting and last week’s aborted one was time enough…