The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Godwin Emefiele, has lamented the depletion of the nation’s oil revenue from over $3.0 billion in 2014 to zero a dollar in the period under review.

Emefiele stated this during the weekend at the 57th annual bankers’ lecture sponsored by the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria, CIBN in Lagos.

According to him, there was a significant loss in foreign reserves due to the naira’s struggle and the rise in demand for forex.

He explained that a severe crisis in the Nigerian foreign exchange market is putting pressure on the Country’s reserves and suppressing the value of the naira.

“The official foreign exchange receipt from crude oil sales into our official reserves has dried up steadily from above $3.0 billion monthly in 2014 to an absolute zero dollar today,”

He said.

CBN queried the increasing cases of crude oil theft affecting the nation’s crude oil export capability and eventually impacted the Country’s foreign exchange reserves.

He reiterated that the bank had established some monetary policies to stymie rising inflation in Nigeria. For instance, increasing its lending rate to 16.5 per cent is one such measure.

Emefiele also decried the increasing rate of student visas granted to Nigerians by the UK, stating that 2022 alone has recorded almost 66,000 against an average of 8,000 in 2020, consuming an annual outflow of $ 2.5 billion in foreign exchange.

Nigeria’s foreign reserves decreased to 37,490 million USD in October from 38,320 million USD in 2022.