BY Busola Aro
Daily Trust Newspaper, a Nigerian prominent media platform, says it stands resolutely on its report that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) devalued the naira.
On Thursday, the newspaper’s report that the naira traded N631 the dollar on the official widow, caused a stir in the country.
The apex bank later debunked the report, adding that such was “replete with outright falsehoods and destabilising innuendos, reflecting potentially willful ignorance.”
The CBN also described Daily Trust’s report as “speculative and calculated at causing panic in the market”, and asked the public “to ignore the news report in its entirety”.
Replying the apex bank in a statement on Thursday evening, the management of the national dailies insisted that its story “contained facts”.
“We stand resolutely by our story,” the statement reads.
“The story contains three facts and one interpretation: that the CBN sold dollars to banks on behalf of their customers at the said rate on the said window yesterday; that President Bola Tinubu had spoken of his government’s resolve to unify Nigeria’s exchange rate markets; and he met with CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele on assumption of office Tuesday.
“All of these are facts and we stand by them. Only a policy change by the government through the CBN can reasonably explain the wide difference of N169.4 between the two rates in just a single day. And only the CBN has the power to do that overnight, regardless of what name it is called.
“From the foregoing, therefore, we wish to reiterate that we stand by the facts of our story. We have evidence of those who bought the dollar at the reported rate, and we challenge the CBN to provide any facts to the contrary.”
The media company further reiterated its commitment to impactful public interest journalism, saying that the reasons for the denial are best known to the apex bank.
“But we do know that we stand by our story,” it added.
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