 Now, I have International Finance and Economic Analyst, Mokhtar. Mohammad, joining me now to look at the latest of the nation's economic situation. Good morning to you, Mokhtar. Many thanks for joining me on Business Insights on Plus TV, Africa. Thank you, Justin, for always having me. Thank you. All right, let's start this way, Mokhtar. You have been following what's been going on, and recently, Oyeh Dili, was in the news, the interview that he had with Tim Blumberg, and he talked about the federal government looking at getting the nitrogen between 657 and 50 at the end of the year. What do you really think? Well, I don't share any optimism, but I know that that should be the true value of the nitrogen, but how soon we get it at December, I'm not to share about that. But I think, I would say the value of the nitrogen between 650 to 700, I totally agree with him. But getting it in December, especially with the parity between the official market and the government on the parallel market, it's something that the gap is very wide to be able to achieve that in December. But again, like you say in the economy, anything is possible if you press the right buttons. And the right button, as it is nice, to make sure we have liquidity in the system. And he has assured that liquidity is coming out also with a new way, a fixed policy that have to do with technology. And also, they will also be run, will I say, a rest of black market operators, and we get every period of change where we can stay. So if you do all that, and definitely think it depends on how liquidity comes in the market and how they are able to implement the other policies, especially the one that has to do with technology. So definitely it's possible that the real value of the knowledge should be between 600 and between that 650 to 700. But achieving that in December is an uphill task. Okay. That's a whole lot that was said. But let me just analyze some of the issues that he mentioned. He said the official market will be expanded. And of course, all legitimate transactions will be done. But they will ensure that the illicit black market do not get supply. I don't know how we are going to achieve that. But I just want you to react towards that. And besides, the Naira has lost around 40% of its value since the central bank devalued it in June, through the unification of the foreign exchange market. While the policy was geared towards attracting more liquidity, things haven't gone on as planned. So what exactly is government telling us? Well, just into attract liquidity, there must be stability. And once there's no stability, there won't be liquidity. And when you're talking about liquidity, you are saying you want to attract foreign direct investors, you want to attract portfolio investors. You came up with some policy to attract this liquidity. But once there's no stability and what you have is volatility. Nobody wants to come to a market of volatility. And remember, there's a fundamental issue, the two-way exchange system. What I mean, the two-way exchange system, I should be able to do business and be able to repatriate my money. That has not happened to the airline company. That has not happened for foreign investors either that have been in the equity market, they've not been able to repatriate their fund for a while now. So definitely, those are fundamental issues that cannot just be wiped away for it to record this liquidity immediately. And I think they are working on those policies. And that's what they are saying, that we need to be patient with them. And definitely, I still see light at the end of the tunnel. But again, dealing with what we call a little black market, I wonder how it's going to do that. I mean, that's going to cover in big, big, big, big operation and how much that we have impact on the economy is yet to be seen. But we see this black market going on that if you have liquidity in the system, then you see a lot of people who want to come to the official market to get liquidity. But if the black market people are still the one that own liquidity, that could be another trigger of a crisis that could see the naira go higher and higher again. So they need to get their strategy right, especially bringing up liquidity into the system. When they do that, definitely, ordinarily, ordinarily, this black market would just naturally go under. So you don't need to, you don't need to struggle with them. Because like we say in economy, once demand, the normal supply is met, then when demand is met, then you have price condoms. When supply is not met, demand is high, supply is not met, then you have price go up. So they just need to do what they have to do. And people begin to have confidence to patronize the official market and the black market. And you don't need to arrest anybody. Naturally, the black market will just go under. All right. I know you said you don't share the optimism of the federal government because as it is right now, the current reality is that the naira traded at around $990 trillion to the U.S. dollar and nothing about 24 hours ago. And in the past week, it has traded at almost 1,300 naira in the power market. This gap is about 40% between the official window and the power market. Just when are we going to get back to winning ways as it were? I think the first quarter of next year, that's what I'm optimistic about, that we might get to winning ways. We might begin to see a little bit of those liquidity is being managed sometime in December to January, especially if we have Nigerians in the diaspora coming home. Most of them will be sending FX home. And if we have made the official window attractive, then you see those liquidity that find their way into other space, begin to find their way into the official window. So that is where I think we'll begin to see the stability. But for me, for complete stability for a very long time, we should be looking between January, February, and March next year. Speaking about inflows, during the Nigerian economic summit last week, the finance minister, Wally Edun said the federal government is expecting around $10 billion in foreign inflows in a few weeks. And the president will also tie into executive orders aimed at reversing the flow of FX from the official window to the parallel market. What do you actually make out of all of that? It's a foreign buffet that says if you're inside a hole, you don't keep digging the hole. You try to come out of the hole. And I think a lot of people say that if you keep doing things the same and you think you have a different result, you are more insane. So then I think the Nigerian government is beginning to look to how to do things differently. We're already in the hope. So what we need to do is how are we going to come out of the hole? We don't have to dig ourselves into a hole. But in this case now, the $10 billion that we are expecting, we need to know where it's coming from. Is it loaned? Is it forward loans again? So Wally Edun is not clear about that yet. I think by the time those $10 billion come in, remember I already have a forward issue, a forward payment of about $6.5 billion. So we are able to clear that backlog of $6.5 billion that we have about, we still have about $3.5 billion. Then again, we have NNPC, Naxan Bank of $3 billion. So we have another $6 billion. And so we have six billion to be able to protect the world and not to forget that again. The central bank said that our production map increase NNPC has promised that it will have more effects into the central bank. So when you look at all those things that he's saying, what we have, what we were all expecting and not saying what we have expectation, then it's high to say by December. By December, we see the cruising of the cabot are more optimistic by the first quarter of next year. We have stability in exchange rate. Moqta, we'll keep our fingers crossed as regards all of that and see if the federal government will actually do its bidding and see if we'll get that by December or the first quarter of next year, as you have said. But let's leave Forex now for a moment and talk about the 2023 supplementary budget of 2.1 trillion Naira. Do you in any way have reservations as to why we always have to supplement more so the item that they've been budgeted for? What are your thoughts really? Justin, I've no surprise here. If you're a student of history in Nigeria, then you need to know that every new administration that comes in in the final year, the outgoing administration always come to the National Assembly for supplementary budget. That for me is the only new thing is that the president is doing it a little bit late. I expect by now they should be submitting the 2024 budget, not the same for supplementary budget in November and the speed in which the National Assembly passed the budget evens. I mean, secondly, by the end of today, I'm sure that Hodyan will be passed into law and the president will sign it into law. So this kind of speech should be extended to other area of Nigerian economy. And let's see that if we begin to see speed, nature, it is like that then. We begin to see how economy begin to take another new turn. Now secondly, am I excited what is in the supplementary, not at all, not at all. All what you have in the supplementary budgetary current expenditure, 2.1 trillion in current expenditure. There's nothing in that budget that has been for capital project, nothing, nothing, no one is going for that project that we create employment. What we see there, we see 2.1, almost 2.5 billion for their, for class, for the for the office of the first lady. We also see a lot of worker salary, as you said, many Nigerians who benefit from that, and you see the presidency, the renovation of the presidential bill and renovation of the bill. So it's all about pleasure as far as I'm concerned. All about the current expenditure, the current expenditure. There's no one that is going into the productive sector of the Nigerian economy. So for me, I'm not excited about that, but I wasn't, I was expecting a supplementary budget, but I thought the supplementary budget would have to do with, we have to do with capital expenditure, no reported expenditure. Okay, finally, as we wrap all of this up now, what are your thoughts concerning the proposed amendment of the CBN Act? I'm sure you followed that story. And just, it's not supposed to be talked, it's not supposed to even come up to the coming years. I thought that is already there, and that's why we have the independence of the CBN. Remember, the CBN Act was implemented by President Orishago Vasanjo, just because he wants the CBN to be independent of the presidency. And so the only place that the CBN is not independent of the presidency is when it comes to currency, currency printing, or even, I mean, re-termination of currency or printing of currency, that's when you need to approve of the presidency. But in other areas, I don't think we need it because he wanted to make the CBN governor to be a political, not a belong to a political party, but you and I know why we are coming to this is because the former CBN governor, at a point, wanted to become the president of Nigeria and see the CBN governor. That's why we are coming to this point. There have never been any CBN governor that has power for a political office when they were in CBN. The former governor was the first that did it. So when the National Assembly say we are going back, we are making sure that I just feel that they should take their time to do better things for Nigeria and not waste our precious time trying to amend an act that right there is already clearly that you are the CBN governor, you are not supposed to be political. Well, thank you so much for all of your thoughts on the show today. We do appreciate it. Thank you, Justin, for having me. Welcome. Mokhtar Muhammad is an international finance and economic analyst. As we go on the show, empowering Nigerians for the demand of workplace and self-reliance will reduce the unemployment rate, especially among the youth. This was the position of a group at its one-day works, queues, employability, and entrepreneurship program. I'll leave you with the details of that report. I am Justin Akademi. Many thanks for being there.