Forex subsidy was worse than fuel subsidy — Governor Dapo Abiodun

Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State just dropped a bombshell at the NEC conference in Abuja today. He said the foreign exchange subsidy we had before May 2023 was actually Nigeria's worst economic burden, not the fuel subsidy we all complained about. According to him, those forex interventions distorted the market and made people hoard dollars instead of keeping naira.

He quoted CBN Governor Olayemi Cardoso saying the same thing during the conference panel. Abiodun argued that while fuel subsidy was visible and politically hot, the forex subsidy quietly destroyed investor confidence and made the naira unattractive as a store of value. But he claimed the recent reforms under President Bola Tinubu have brought stability and confidence back to the forex market.

I never thought about it that way. We were all focused on fuel subsidy removal but maybe the real damage was happening in the forex market all along. Which one do you think hit us harder — fuel or forex subsidy?