Nigeria’s foreign exchange reserves fell to $34.74 billion by February 27, from $35.03 billion on February 13, their highest in six months, the latest data from the central bank showed on Wednesday.

The forex reserves of top Africa’s crude exporter stood at $33.24 billion around the same date a year ago and were $34.41 billion a month earlier than that.

Analysts attributed the decline to a withdrawal by the government to top up revenue shortfall for January’s budgetary distribution to the three tiers of government.

Nigeria say its revenue from oil exports dropped in January against due to production outages, leading to a withdrawal from the excess crude account to keep distributions steady when crude oil revenues dip.