The whole drama took a new turn when some APC governors who had never shown concern for the plight of the masses despite all the economic downturn of the last eight years and the untold hardship the Buhari administration had subjected Nigerians to, suddenly started mounting pressure on President Mohammadu Buhari and the CBN governor to extend deadline for accepting the old notes as legal tender.
Kunle Oshobi l Tuesday, February 21, 2023
LAGOS, Nigeria – In October 2022, acting on credible intelligence that there was a huge amount of money outside the banking sector kept by politicians, bandits, money launderers and other criminals, distorting the monetary policy of the apex bank, the CBN announced intention to re-design the Naira and withdraw the old notes from circulation while giving a deadline of January 31st for the use of the old notes as legal tender.
As expected, most Nigerians complied and the CBN was able to mop up over two trillion Naira of the old notes from circulation within the stipulated time while giving very stringent conditions for those who wished to deposit large sums of money based on the provisions of the money laundering Act.
However, as it’s typical of everything under the current administration, the CBN bungled the exercise by not making enough new notes available to the public while some bankers also connived with unscrupulous politicians’ to corner large quantities of the new notes for themselves. As a result of this, there became a huge shortage of Naira notes in the system with the banks not being able to make the new notes available to the public and this resulted in distortions to daily economic transactions especially amongst the masses.
The whole drama took a new turn when some APC governors who had never shown concern for the plight of the masses despite all the economic downturn of the last eight years and the untold hardship the Buhari administration had subjected Nigerians to, suddenly started mounting pressure on President Mohammadu Buhari and the CBN governor to extend deadline for accepting the old notes as legal tender.
Prior to this, they had tried to get the CBN governor arrested by the DSS on trumped up charges of financing terrorism. When all their antics of blackmailing the CBN governor did not work and Buhari refused to budge, in their desperation they did the most unbelievable thing and took their own party’s government to court where they procured an interim injunction to force the President from acting on deadline for submission of the old Naira notes.
The thing to note here is that what they got was an “interim” injunction which lapsed after seven days and not a perpetual injunction which is indefinite. Given this scenario, at the expiration of the interim injunction which they procured, President Mohammadu Buhari gave presidential backing to the CBN policy in a national broadcast and maintained the old N500 and N1,000 note had ceased to be legal tender while giving an extension for the use of the old N200 by two months.
Many Nigerians had suspected that there was an ulterior motive for the governors being so aggressive against the Naira re-design policy but the reason became public knowledge when Buba Galadinma a former chieftain of the APC went on air to reveal that an APC governors in the north west had amassed over N22 billion in the old notes for the purpose of vote buying in the forthcoming elections.
Inside sources also revealed that their southern counterparts had accumulated even more cash for the same purpose while their presidential candidate is known for his deployment of bullion vans to distort the electoral process.
The real irony in all this is that it was this same APC governors that mopped up billions of Naira in new notes released by the CBN to the commercial banks thus worsening the Naira crisis in their desperate bid to amass cash for the purpose of votes buying.
As Nigerians we must rise up against the evil agenda of the APC governors because if they are allowed to get away and implement this electoral heist, no elected official will ever work to improve the lot of the people again, all they will do once they get into office is to amass enough wealth buy their way through in subsequent elections at the expense of the masses.
While the CBN is being encouraged to hasten the minting and distribution of the new notes to ease pains of the masses, let us as Nigerians ensure that we don’t fall for the antics of the same people that looted the funds meant for our welfare, hoarded it for the purpose of vote buying while denying the average Nigerians cash needed for their daily expenses and causing us untold hardship in the process.
Our lives as Nigerians will only begin to get better when we make our leaders accountable to us. Say no to vote buying.
NB: Kunle Oshobi writes from Lagos
