Nigerian banks are sufficiently well capitalised to absorb the impact of the 40% effective devaluation of the naira against the US dollar seen as of yesterday, the third day of trading under the country's new market-driven exchange-rate policy regime, says Fitch Ratings.

Fitch Ratings has downgraded Nigeria's Long-term foreign currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to 'B+' from 'BB-' and Long-term local currency IDR to 'BB-' from 'BB'. The Outlooks are Stable. The issue ratings on Nigeria's senior unsecured foreign-currency bonds have also been downgraded to 'B+' from 'BB-'. The Country Ceiling has been revised down to 'B+' from 'BB-' and the Short-Term Foreign-Currency IDR affirmed at 'B'.

Nigeria's central bank left its Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) steady at 14.0 percent and said it was still committed to lowering the rate but right now a "rate cut would worsen the inflationary conditions and undermine the current outlook for stability in the foreign exchange market."

Contrary to the World Bank’s projection of a 1% growth in Nigeria’s economy in 2017, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its World Economic Outlook report, predicts that the country’s GDP will only grow by 0.8% this year and 2.3% in 2018.