Over the past months, shockingly, the naira to dollar rate hit about N400- which has been the highest the country has ever experienced. Ever since the upsurge became more apparent early last year following the drop in oil prices, things have not been the same in this country. The exchange rate has been fluctuating, negatively affecting every other thing in the country.

Virtually the price of everything has skyrocketed, from clothes to shoes; even our own locally made products are now very expensive all in the name of “dollar has risen”. When you go to the market and you want to buy something, you hear the price and you can’t help but ask … why? They will tell you "dollar don rise". Even the cost of transportation is now very high; when you enter a car and the cab man tells you the price to your destination, you once again must ask “why?”. He too will tell you "dollar don rise". Everything in the country right now is attached to "dollar don rise". Almost all the businessmen - especially those who provide the importation of goods- have been affected by this, and they are finding it increasingly difficult to bring goods into the country as a result of the exorbitant exchange rate.

Our economy is completely tied to oil. When there is a fall in the price of crude the country shakes, and yet we have so many options for diversification aside from crude.  Outside of crude, the only option being talked about is farming, and nobody is talking about Mining. We have almost all of the Natural Resources that can hold a Country, from Gold, to Coal, to Lime stone, to Iron-Ore, to Syenite; these are but a few. So many of our resources are not being put to use, while all we are focusing on is crude and farming. If we could diversify into Mining it could further help to stabilize our economy.

If the rise and fall of the dollar continues like this, the next few months will be worse than the months before them, because most of the shops will have run out of goods and will need to restock their shops.  At this point we will truly feel the impact more because most of the shops are still selling old stocks with relation to their normal buying price, and probably have just added few naira on each. However, by the time they go and restock, if the dollar is still high then we will all truly understand what the rise of dollar is doing to our economy.

By Frank Oluwafemi