Kwankwaso slams politicians,CBN over Naira redesign policy

The presidential candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) Rabiu Kwankwaso, has issued a scathing critique of some politicians due to their alleged dishonesty over the Naira redesign policy enacted by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

Kwankwaso made his stance known during a Channels TV interview “Sunrise Daily” on Thursday.

President Muhammadu Buhari in November 2022 had launched the new naira notes of N200, N500, and N1,000 denominations, which were aimed at combating counterfeiting, improving the effectiveness of monetary policy tools on inflation, as well as mopping excess liquidity.

Speaking on the success of the policy, the CBN governor Godwin Emefiele said it recovered N1.9 trillion worth of currency in two months outside of the banking system following its naira notes redesign and cash swap policy.

Emefiele made this known on Sunday, January 29, 2023, as part of his updates following a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari.

He also noted that the apex bank had been able to reduce the currency outside the banking system to N900 billion from a whopping N2.7 trillion following the announcement of new naira notes.

Meanwhile, many politicians and critics have pilloried the CBN for plunging the economy into chaos due to the scarcity of cash, especially for small businesses who often operate without bank accounts.

READ ALSO:2023: NNPP campaign rubbishes Atiku’s claim on meeting with Kwankwaso

In his statement during the interview, Kwankwaso said the politicians against the policy are “engaging in gimmicks” since many of them have access to huge vaults of new notes in collusion with the banks

Nonetheless, the former Kano Governor called for caution on the part of the government in order to stem the rising poverty ravaging the polity, which might be exacerbated by the CBN mandate.

He stated, “People should be given at least six months which is even a very short amount of time. Look at the travails of people in urban areas such as Lagos and Abuja.

“The government should be in place to sort out issues; not inflict unnecessary hardship. Now according to the NBS, we have over 133 million people who are in poverty in this country and this are people who are law abiding and rely on daily income and from our investigations, what the Government is saying is that it wants to prevent huge volume of monies but what they don’t know is that this people lose nothing since they are in a position of power. They would have collected monies since they are friends with these bank stakeholders, owning large shares therein.

“No banker or MD will say NO to a Governor who needs huge volume of cash. Some politicians complaining don’t mean it; they are engaging in gimmicks.”

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