The ongoing devaluation of the naira has forced buyers to pay as much as hundreds of thousands of naira more for gadgets within a week.

A steady decline in the value of the Nigerian naira has seen the purchasing power of holders decrease noticeably in just a matter of days.

Gadgets that cost more in August over a steady decline of the naira cost a lot more in September. They have continued to cost much more over the past week.

A 12.9-inch 512 GB iPad with WiFi cellular network capabilities, which sells for $1,599, has become more expensive for Nigerians in the last seven days. From the parallel market, a dollar cost N1,046 on October 13 but had jumped to N1,154 by Friday. This means that the iPad, which cost N1,672,554, now costs N1,845,246, an almost N200,000 jump seven days after.

An iPhone 15 Pro with 512GB storage was N1,358,756, but it now costs N1,499,046.

READ ALSO: ANALYSIS: Naira Is 1,034 Per Dollar, but Not at CBN. Does Nigeria Still Have a Parallel Market?

The 13-inch Macbook Air jumped from N1,463,354 to N1,614,446 in the same week.

Apple Watch Series 9 now goes for as much as N610,466, from N553,334 last week.

READ ALSO: Free Float of Naira. What Does It Mean?

The exchange rate is a lot more harder on cards like the Apple Card, which should have been an alternative payment method. FIJ saw that a thousand dollars’ worth of the Apple Card cost N1,293,810 on Friday.

Obviously, it was not only the iPad or Apple gadgets that were affected by this currency value erosion. The phones, computers, high-end home appliances, hospital equipment and flagship tech imported to Nigeria will all be slapped with higher prices.

Most of these products are not manufactured in the country, so they are all imported. Shipping fees simply compound the cost (this report did not include shipping fees and import duties).

Segun Ajibola, the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria’s former president and chairman of council, recently spoke with FIJ on the parallel market and the naira against the dollar.

“Nobody sets up parallel markets. A parallel market emerges spontaneously when the official market is unable to cope with the demand for a particular commodity,” Ajibola told FIJ.

“So, it’s like when there is a scarcity and people go behind to buy and, there is an element of rationing. In Nigeria, when there were products like fertilisers which the government used to provide, there was usually a parallel market for fertilisers. More recently, in petroleum markets, those who sell in containers by the roadside and on the highway create an example of a parallel market. When people cannot find the fuel, they go to buy from the highway.

“It is the same thing that occurs in the foreign exchange market because what is available officially is not enough. People then start to find a way when they need it and they cannot get it officially. For instance, somebody wants to travel but they cannot get the dollars they need from their bank and they must travel. Such a person will look for another way to get the dollars. That’s how the so-called parallel market emerged.

“So, it has always been like that since 1986 when Nigeria introduced the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) and the dollar became a commodity rationed, and when you are rationing and people cannot get enough, they start looking for other ways to get it.”