According to the World Bank, "the flow of foreign investment into the country fluctuated in the period under review and caused a shortage of foreign currency which has since led to the free fall of the naira" (Nigerian currency).
According to World Bank data, remittances from the Nigerian diaspora played a key role in mitigating the impact of the foreign exchange shortage and maintaining the country's foreign exchange reserves.
In 2022, the World Bank said the flow of remittances to sub-Saharan Africa grew by 5.2% to $53 billion, with Nigeria taking the largest share.
Analysis of the figures shows that in 2015, diaspora remittances were 21.2 billion USD, falling to 19.7 billion USD in 2016, but recovered to 22 billion USD in 2017.
In 2018 and 2019 the figures were, respectively, 24.31 and 23.81 billion dollars, but the pandemic caused it to fall to 17.21 billion in 2020, recovering to 19.2 billion in 2021 and 20.9 billion in 2022 due to several new policies by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
