Word: nigerias
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When Chinese President Hu Jintao addressed Nigeria's National Assembly last week and spoke of the growing strategic relationship between China and Africa, parliamentarians gave him a standing ovation. But the National Assembly is less united on another matter: moves to change Nigeria's constitution to allow President Olusegun Obasanjo, who was elected in 1999 as the democratic savior of Africa's most populous nation, to run for a third four-year term in 2007. Obasanjo himself has not publicly committed to running. But with a bill calling for a constitutional amendment now before parliament, the President's backers...
...continent's most populous country is trying to clean up its currency's act. In recent weeks, the Central Bank of Nigeria has launched a campaign urging citizens to take better care of their money. Advertisements in newspapers, magazines and on television ask Nigerians to "Stop the Abuse of the Naira" and "Handle the Naira With Pride," referring to the Nigerian currency that was introduced in 1973 and originally worth just over...
...public service campaign may seem unusual, but in many ways it simply reflects the country's desperate economic situation. During the oil crisis of the early 1980s - when Nigeria was awash with petro-dollars and its president boasted to his neighbors that his country's problem was not poverty but how to spend all its money - the Naira was almost worth $2. Since then, though, military rule, corruption and mismanagement have crippled the country's economy and its currency. One U.S dollar is now worth around 140 Naira...
...currency's value has declined, so has its condition. Many Naira notes are tattered and stained. In the past few years Nigeria's Central Bank has started printing 500- and 1000-Naira notes, which tend to be cleaner. But most 20-, 50- and 100-Naira notes are torn, grimy and full of sweat from being grasped by bus conductors all day or stuffed down the bras of market women working in the scorching sun. One TV ad actually shows a woman hiding some Naira notes in her ample cleavage. "The moisture from the body, food and other fluids allow germs...
...should be neater, of course," says Joy Imobighe, a hotel accountant in Port Harcourt, when asked her whether she supports the Bank's campaign. "The neatness to a certain extent determines the value." And as the unorthodox marketing campaign makes clear, Nigeria's authorities would prefer that the Naira be worth a whole lot more...