🍞Stable-ish

Hello!

Adetomiwa here, writing to you from Lagos, where the heat is hot, and the rain is heavy. It’s a climate crisis, everyone.

This edition moves across a few pressure points in the Nigerian economy and a noticeable shift in how Nigerians shop as inflation continues to squeeze the cost of living.

According to data from the Central Bank of Nigeria, reserves fell from $49.18 billion on April 1 to $48.45 billion by April 23, marking an average weekly decline of about $233 million.

The sharpest drop happened between April 1 and April 10, before things calmed slightly in the second and third weeks. By late April, the pace of decline had slowed, but the number was still on a downward spiral.

The “don’t panic” message vs the balance sheet reality

CBN Governor Olayemi Cardoso has largely downplayed concern, maintaining that the decline is “within manageable bounds”. The central bank continues to project reserves could reach $51 billion by the end of 2026, framing it as part of a broader stability and investor-confidence strategy.

That optimism technically isn’t baseless. Reserves are still well above the ~$37.8 billion level seen in the same period in 2025, meaning Nigeria is operating from a stronger base than a year ago. There was also a brief boost earlier in 2026, including a $509 million rise in January, showing inflow cycles are still active—just inconsistent. But CBN’s $51 billion goal was first announced in December 2025, before the United States’ war against Iran complicated global realities.

When the naira sneezes, reserves feel it

The reserve drawdown is tightly linked to pressure in the foreign exchange market. The naira weakened to around ₦1,358/$ in the official market during the same period, as demand for dollars outpaced supply.

That mismatch is where reserves come in. To stabilise the currency, the CBN steps in with FX supply, essentially smoothing volatility, but at the cost of reserve depletion.

Market analysts also point to a cocktail of pressures: debt servicing, softer oil inflows, and capital outflows from foreign investors still recalibrating exposure to Nigeria.

A trend?

This isn’t an isolated April story. In March, reserves already slipped from above $50 billion to around $49.6 billion, setting up the current trend.

Historically, this kind of volatility isn’t unusual. Nigeria has seen sharper short-term drops before, including multi-billion-dollar swings in earlier cycles. The difference now is the attempt to maintain tighter communication and forward guidance from policymakers.

Bottom line:

Nigeria isn’t running out of reserves. In fact, the county’s reserves are doing what they’re designed to do: absorb pressure in the system. But there’s a trade-off. Every attempt to smooth the FX market chips away at the buffer, and the sustainability of that approach depends on one thing: whether inflows (oil revenue, investment, remittances) can consistently catch up with demand.

For now, the message from the central bank is calm, even optimistic. The data, meanwhile, is showing a beige flag: It’s not flashing red, but it isn’t exactly green either.

🏦 CBN is shufflin’: Nigeria’s central bank is switching things up with banking fees in a way that reshuffles who pays what, and how often. Under new draft rules from the Central Bank of Nigeria, ATM card issuance fees will rise by 50%, while some recurring charges, such as monthly maintenance fees on naira cards, will be removed. At the same time, smaller digital transfers are set to become cheaper or free, and businesses/merchants (not everyday customers) will now bear the cost of card transactions. The CBN’s goal is to minimise friction for everyday digital payments, even if it means the pricing structure takes a more indirect route to the same destination.

🤝 Nigeria’s growing partner roster: The UK and US have been warming up to a more trade-focused relationship with Nigeria. South Korea looks like it’s catching the same wave. South Korea is changing how it engages with Nigeria, shifting from aid-led support to a more equal partnership focused on trade, institutions, and long-term economic cooperation. According to Korea’s Chargé d’Affaires, Tak Namgung, the traditional donor-recipient framework is no longer viable in the current economic climate (global Official Development Assistance fell to about $174 billion in 2025). To establish a sustainable partnership, South Korean institutions and organisations will now pursue trade, institutional capacity, and shared economic goals. They will work with Nigeria to trade commodities South Korea is interested in, like lithium and graphite.

💸 Creative stability: The UK Nigeria Tech Hub has launched a Creative Fund with Tech4Dev, aimed at plugging a familiar gap in Nigeria’s creative scene: strong ideas and talent, but limited technical infrastructure to fully execute them. The fund targets film, fashion, and music projects that need support like VFX, sound engineering, design tools, and digital production systems — basically the behind-the-scenes work that often gets outsourced. It sits within wider UK–Nigeria cooperation under the Economic Transformation and Investment Partnership, and leans on data showing Nigeria’s creative sector employs about 4.2 million people, but still relies heavily on self-taught skills and limited access to formal finance. The focus isn’t just funding projects, but helping them actually get made properly by strengthening the technical backbone of how creative work gets produced. Applications are now open to creative companies, studios, production houses, fashion brands, and music labels across Nigeria.

So yes, if you’ve been professionally thrifting since 2022, your time has officially arrived. Nigeria’s second-hand market is having a moment — not because it wants to, but because it has to.

Data from Jiji shows searches for used items jumped 97% year-on-year in Q1 2026, with over 40 million visits on the platform. Phones, cars, and household electronics are leading the charge, as rising living costs push more people toward cheaper alternatives that still do the job.

Even how people shop is changing. Discount-filtered phone searches rose 81% quarter-on-quarter, while stricter price caps increased by 11%, pointing to more budget-led buying.

The shift is being driven by inflation and stretched incomes, which have kept pressure on households. For many Nigerians, buying used isn’t a lifestyle choice anymore; it’s the only way to survive

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