While Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote predicted last week that the Naira will strengthen to N1,100 per dollar sometime this year, a more optimistic President Bola Tinubu has said the Naira will appreciate to N1000 per dollar in the coming weeks.
Speaking during the launch of the national industrial policy 2025 by the federal government,Dangote said, “Today, the dollar is N1,340. Mr. Vice-President, I can assure you with what I know, blocking all this importation and co, naira this year will be as low as N1,100 if we are lucky.“
President Tinubu spoke in his remarks delivered at the Renewed Hope Ambassadors Summit in Abuja on Tuesday.
He confirmed that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had to intervene on Monday by mopping up excess dollars to stabilize the Naira.
Tinubu maintained that the monetary policy measures implemented by his administration are already yielding results.
“In fact, if not for the interventions by the Central Bank of Nigeria yesterday (Monday), the N1,000 to a dollar, we are going to attain it in weeks, not in months,” he said optimistically.
The Nigerian Naira maintained a steady performance against the US Dollar during early trading on Wednesday, February 25, 2026. Data from the Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market (NFEM) and informal sources indicate that the currency is benefiting from a period of lower volatility, supported by consistent policy measures from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The parallel market continues to shadow the official rate closely, with the US dollar being exchanged at rates ranging between 1,355 and 1,365 per dollar. The historically low spread between the official and “black market” rates—currently less than 1.5%—is a testament to the success of the current harmonization policies.
The CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, on Tuesday, during a briefing after its 304th Monetary Policy Committee, said the country’s gross external reserves increased to a 13-year high of $50.45 billion on February 16, 2026.
