By TONI KAN

?I have done this for a long time but have never seen people feeling quite so positive about Nigeria," said the Standard Chartered bank executive who moderated the Q&A session at Willard Intercontinental Hotel in Washington DC on April 23, 2025.

The event was an Investor Forum addressed jointly by Wale Edun, Nigeria's finance minister and the country's Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Olayemi Cardoso, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria on the sidelines of the IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings.

Before the Q & A session, Cardoso had announced to the room full of bankers, investors, financial analysts and the media that Nigeria?s credit rating had been recently upgraded by Fitch to ?B? in recognition of the fact that the economic reforms embarked on by the CBN have ?improved policy credibility and reduced near-term risks to macroeconomic stability.?

The announcement was met with applause and looking around the room, I was reminded of the dog-eared cliche that failure is an orphan, but success has many fathers and mothers and siblings.

It also, underlined, in many ways, the difference a year can make in the life of an institution and how the passage of time and positive outcomes can sway public as well as investor and analyst opinions.

One year ago, Cardoso, newly appointed to steer the CBN ship out of treacherous waters was seen by many as a quixotic character swinging wildly at the windmills of monetary and macroeconomic dysfunction.

The CBN was buffeted on many fronts ? run-away ways and means advances, backlog of FX obligations, arbitrage and speculation no thanks to an ever-widening gap between FX rates at the official and parallel markets, and citizens who could not understand why the governor and his team persisted in raising the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) at every meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC).

To put it mildly, nothing seemed to be working.

But one year down the line, it is safe to say with every sense of responsibility that there was method to Cardoso?s seeming madness. He was intentional, strategic, focused and committed to implementing the reforms and seeing them lead to change and measurable outcomes.

"Reforms are bearing fruit," Cardoso told his audience. "The country is in a much better place and the numbers speak for themselves."

He had earlier told his audience that under his watch, the apex bank is prioritising trust as a key plank of their orthodox monetary policy which, he insists, has helped stabilise the macros.

"Building confidence and building trust in the currency and strategy will help people have more hope in their country.?

His comments were preceded by a presentation by Muhammad Sani Abdullahi, a Deputy Governor at the CBN. The presentation highlighted key indices of growth and performance as well as areas of enhanced corporate governance and reforms.

The naira, he said, has stabilised with a reduction in the premium between the parallel and official markets down to 4% from a high of 50%. "We now have a competitive exchange rate," he noted.

The presentation also touched on increased remittance inflows, rise in portfolio investments and easy repatriation of forex. It also highlighted the regime of transparency and ethical conduct facilitated by the coming of the #FXCode.

A few days before the Washington event, the CBN governor had also shared success stories with a similar audience of investors and analysts.

At a high-level global forum hosted by the CBN, in concert with J.P. Morgan and the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX) at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York City on April 17th, 2025, the CBN governor and his team highlighted outcomes from the CBN?s reform agenda over the past 18 months from monetary tightening to FX market transparency and stronger financial governance.

The reforms, according to Cardoso, are ?laying the groundwork for long-term macroeconomic stability and signaling a new era of transparency and confidence.?

His audience seemed to agree with Jason Rekate, Global Co-Head of Corporate Banking at Citi commenting that when it comes to investing in Nigeria ?Clients are asking how soon they can enter, not if.?

Before the New York trip the CBN had issued a press release - Nigeria Posts $6.83 Billion Balance of Payments Surplus in 2024, Signaling Economic Resurgence. Highlights included the announcement of a ?Balance of Payments (BOP) surplus of $6.83 billion for the 2024 financial year, marking a decisive turnaround from deficits of $3.34 billion in 2023 and $3.32 billion in 2022.?

Other highlights included a slight surge of 6.2% in Official Development Assistance (ODA) which rose to $3.37 billion. Portfolio investment inflows rose by 106.5% to $13.35 billion.

The CBN?s report also highlighted the fact that economic diversification is proceeding apace with a 48.3% rise in gas exports to $8.66 billion, a 24.6% increase in non-oil exports to $7.46 billion, increase in remittance inflows by 8.9% to $20.93 billion and a 43.5% growth to $4.73 billion up from $3.30 billion in 2023 in inflows from International Money Transfer Operators (IMTO).

Almost a month after the Spring Meetings good news continues to flow from the CBN which in its continuing prioritization of transparency released the summary of its Consolidated and Separate Financial Statements for the Year Ended 31 December 2024.

The report showed that CBN and its subsidiaries reported a profit before tax of N44.68 billion. This is significant because just a year before the CBN group posted a pre-tax loss of N1.15 trillion.

Other fundamentals remained strong with total assets hitting N117.6 trillion, up by 33.83% from N87.87 trillion in 2023. The CBN also reported a significant uptick in external reserves which rose by 82.58% from N29.97 trillion in the previous year N54.72 trillion.

But what does this resurgence mean in real terms for the ordinary man? How can these macroeconomic gains be felt on the streets of Kano and Calabar, Lagos and Awka?

The CBN has clearly got the monetary and macroeconomic side of things covered but for real change to be seen and felt monetary and fiscal policies must converge which was why it was heartening to attend two sessions addressed jointly by Edun and Cardoso in Washington DC.

Their work is cut out for them because serious challenges remain especially in this era of tariffs and counter measures which has led to downgraded global growth projections, shrinking ODA and double-digit inflation.

But there is reason to hope because successes recorded so far indicate that when it comes to monetary policy we have a safe pair of hands at the CBN.

No one could have captured it better than the man himself: "We are on the road to ensuring that our institutions are stronger and through experience can withstand shocks," Cardoso declared before adding that, ?I see a lot more interest in investing in Nigeria. If we continue in the direction we are going the transformation we seek will definitely come.?

?Toni Kan is a PR expert and financial analyst.

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