President of the Association of Bureau De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON), Aminu Gwadebe, has rejected the decision of Bureau de Change (BDC) operators in Abuja to shut down the market over dollar scarcity, saying it was not a well-thought-out decision.
Forex traders in Abuja, on Thursday, began an indefinite closure of the BDC market in Abuja, citing scarcity of dollars.
He told Nairametrics in a chat that what the Abuja operators had done was not the position of the association, and added that there are procedures and channels for communicating grievances.
“That one is not our position, its not a professional way of handling things. When you shut market, you shut your leadership, you shut everything. Are you saying you are the ones printing dollars, that when you shut market, the dollar will come down or go up, so what will your shutdown cause to the market?
“It will only affect you as far as I am concerned, you the individual that is shutting down. Being regulated, there are procedures and channels for communicating your grievances and not to wake up one day and say you are closing the market, you know this is a sovereign market, some of them that say that they are shutting down if you go to their houses or wherever they are doing the business.
“And imagine what the rates are doing now, the rates came down to about N1410, N1420 in Lagos, so imagine an association has directed you to shut your office and your business is falling like leaves from the tree and you are not there to quickly take decisions for your business, so who is suffering.
“You see I am happy they call themselves forex traders, we are a licensed association and we have procedures for expressing our agitations, we use the media, we write correspondences to the CBN, we engage security agencies, even the presidency, the National Assembly, all over the place. So, we believe constructive engagement is the solution.’’
