There have been rending reports on X that dollar is now selling at N1,000 in Abuja.

The X post read, “This morning, at Zone 4 Abuja, along the Sheraton Hotel, the dollar is selling at N1,000 – $1. Abdulsalam BDC is selling N900 if buying over $5,000.

“There’s a mad rush to dispose of dollars at Zone 4. The dollar in the parallel market is presently selling at a lower price than the official market.”

However, our correspondent reached out to “Abdusallam BDC” (Abubakar Abdusallam) on Wednesday in Abuja, and he denied selling FX at the quoted price.

“Dollar is selling at N1300/$1, not N1000 or N900,” he said.

Recently, the Central Bank of Nigeria offered to sell $10,000 to each BDC operator at N1,251/$.

The apex bank expects them not to sell above N1,269/$, representing a margin of N18.

An X user, whose real name could not be ascertained, also debunked the rumour, stating that he was at the location (Sheraton Hotel Zone 4) and there was no such transaction.

“I was at Zone 4 this morning, and there was nothing like that. This is fake news,” he said.

The President of the Bureau De Change Association of Nigeria, Aminu Gwadabe, could not be reached for statement as of the time of filing this report.

Bamidele who operates under the name Prosocial International Limited is facing three counts of conspiracy, obtaining and stealing preferred against him by the police.

He was charged before the court by the Force Criminal Investigation Department, Alagbon-Ikoyi, Lagos.

The defendant was arrested and arraigned following a petition that was written to the police by the traders through their counsel, Henry Mejulu.

During the arraignment of the defendant, the police prosecuting counsel, S. O. Ayodele, told the court that the defendant conspired with others currently at large to commit the offence.

He said Bamidele perpetrated the act between December 2022 and January 2023 when he fraudulently obtained the total sum of N157,206,000 under false pretence of helping the traders to get the United States dollars equivalent.

Ayodele told the court that the defendant collected the money from the trader’s representative, one Mrs Priscilla Oyiowo through one Obinna Ozuah

The prosecutor said that the defendant allegedly diverted his purse and used the money for his personal purposes.

According to the prosecutor, the offence committed contravened Sections 8(a) and 1(1)(c) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Related Offences Act; CAP A8 Vol 1, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria,  and punishable under section 1(3),383 of the Criminal Code Act, Cap C 38, and 390 (9) Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004.

Meanwhile, the defendant pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

In view of the defendant’s plea of not guilty, the prosecutor urged the court to remand him at the Nigerian Correctional Service Centre till the determination of the charges.

However, the defendant’s lawyer, E. A. Alafin, told the court that he had filed his client’s bail application and had been served on the prosecution.

He urged the court to admit his client to bail in the most liberal terms.

But the application was opposed by the prosecutor on the grounds that he needed to read through the application and file his response accordingly.

Consequently, Justice Akintayo Aluko, adjourned the matter till October 5, 2023, for hearing of the defendant’s bail application.

The judge also ordered that the defendant be remanded in the custody of the Nigerian Correctional Service, till the adjourned date.

Some Bureau de Change operators said the local currency had earlier exchanged to the dollar at 820 a week earlier.

Since the unification of the exchange rates in the country by the Central Bank of Nigeria in recent weeks, the naira had continued to slide to the dollar, due to liquidity crunch, speculations, and other challenges.

a BDC operator in Lagos, Alhaji Sanni Abdul, stated, “Naira is currently bought and sold at 850/$ and 876/$. The exchange rate has not been stable for some time now.”

Another BDC operator, Alli Ibrahim, said, “Things are getting more expensive. As of Friday, we were buying and selling the naira at 850/$ and 865/$.”

Chief Executive Officer, the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise, Dr. Muda Yusuf, said the foreign exchange market was evidently under pressure as a result of a number of factors.

He said there was a curious surge in monetary expansion in the last month.

Yusuf said, “Money supply grew by an unprecedented 15 percent in one month between May and June 2023.  Broad money grew by over N9tn, from N55.7tn to N64.9tn. This surge in monetary growth is unprecedented. Obviously, this must have had an effect on the exchange rate.”

He said the monetary authorities should investigate this drastic growth in money supply and take steps to curb subsequent expansion.

“Such dramatic growth in money supply poses a significant risk to macroeconomic stability, especially price stability,” he said.

Over the last few years, he said, there had been a cumulative backlog of unmet foreign exchange demand, running into billions of dollars as a result of acute illiquidity in the foreign exchange market.

With a more liberalised forex market, he said, the pressure of the backlog of unmet demands and other maturing forex-related obligations had been unleashed on the investors’ and exporters’ window.

However, at the Investor & Exporter forex window, the naira appreciated by 3.24 percent against the dollar in the previous week.

According to the data from the official trading platform of FMDQ Securities, there was a slight appreciation of the naira by 3.24 basis percent, bringing its value to 777.82/$. It ended the previous week at 803.90/$.

As of Friday, the naira traded at an intra-day high of 855/$ and a low of 665/$ with a total turnover of $77.99m.

Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant, Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari disclosed this during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Tuesday, insisting that people will be shocked when details of the investigation on how the sums of money were transferred to the group will be fully disclosed.

According to him, the government will soon make public the names of those who are behind these evil acts.

“Bureaus de change are facilitating money to terrorists. We have already worked with the UAE.

“Convictions have been achieved of Nigerians who are transferring money to Boko Haram terrorists and this also happens domestically. And I tell you that by the time we finish this investigation, the shocking details will surprise many Nigerians,” he said.

He also said places of worship are used to harbour killers of security agents in the country, assuring that heads of intelligence agencies are working on it.

He said, “It is shocking to many Nigerian that places of worship and farmland are places where killers of policemen, naval officers and military are being harboured.  This discovery will shock you. But this is going on all over the country.

“The new Service chiefs are working with the Inspector General and heads of intelligence agencies and there is a clear lead.”