President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday promised to take drastic steps with regard to the scarcity of the new naira notes. This will be done with a view to finding ways to end the hardships and hassles the citizens had been made to face before getting the new naira notes.
He said this while giving his speech during the meeting he held with members of the Progressive Governors Forum, who were at the Presidential Villa, Abuja to discuss the issue with him. The governors had noted that this had somewhat threatened and rubbished the efforts of the current administration in transforming the economy.
President Buhari submitted that the naira redesign project will give a boost to the economy and provide long-term benefits while expressing doubts about the commitment of commercial banks to the success of the policy.
‘Some commercial banks are inefficient and only concerned about themselves, even if one year is added, problems associated with selfishness and greed won’t go away’ he said.
The president added that he was aware of media reports about cash shortages and hardships the local businesses and ordinary people had faced , he will however within seven days end whatever had stood in the way of successful implementation of the naira redesign exercise.
‘I will revert to the CBN and the Minting Company. There will be a decision one way or the other in the remaining seven days of the 10-day extension’ he said.
The governors had earlier told the president that, while they agreed that his decision to give the go-ahead for the naira redesign exercise was good and they are fully in support of this, its execution had however been botched and their citizens were becoming increasingly upset.
They urged the president to use his good offices to direct the concurrent usage of the new and old naira notes till the end of the year.
The president however noted that when he considered approving the policy, he had demanded an undertaking from the CBN that no new notes will be printed in a foreign country and they had in turn given him assurances that there was enough capacity, manpower and equipment to print the currency for local needs.
The president added that he needed to go back to find out what had actually happened, he also told the governors that, being closer to the people, he had heard their cries and will act in a way that there will be a solution.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has also expressed concern over the hardships that Nigerians had faced before getting the new naira notes.
He said this during the meeting held with some players in the FinTech space on Friday.
While urging them to explore possible ways of mitigating the hardships, the regulators and the commercial banks were also asked to deploy more FinTechs and money agents to the hinterlands to address the worrisome situation.
‘You need cash to pay for transport. For instance, in Abuja how do you take ‘drop or along’ or use a Keke NAPEP without cash, or buy foodstuff on the road or in canteens, or even buy recharge cards?
Parents with kids in public schools give money daily to their children for lunch, most commerce is informal, so you need cash for most of the things’ he said.
The Vice President urged the Central Bank of Nigeria and the commercial banks to work with all FinTechs that have mobile money agents, not just some of them, in order to reach the farthest places in the country.
‘It seems to me that commercial banks must engage their mobile money operators – FinTechs with mobile money licenses and many of them have micro-finance bank licenses now and already have a network of mobile money agents or human banks or human ATMs (as they are sometimes called) who are responsible to them and they can supervise by themselves. They can do currency swaps and open bank accounts’ he added.
Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano state has however accused the governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Godwin Emefiele of coming up with the naira redesign exercise because his presidential bid had failed.
It will recalled that Emefiele had had his name mentioned in connection with the 2023 APC presidential nomination though he had denied this a group had however obtained the N100 million presidential nomination form on his behalf.
Team@orientactualmags.com learned Ganduje said this during an interview with the BBC Hausa Service after attending the meeting President Muhammadu Buhari held with the APC governors on Friday.
The Kano state governor alleged that the CBN governor does not want the elections to hold, he added that they had told Buhari that redesigning the naira notes would cause hardships.
‘This is not the agenda of the APC, it is the agenda of those who surrounded the president and the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. You know he (Emefiele) wanted to be the president but he failed. That is why they don’t want the election to hold or prefer another party to win it’ he said.
It will be recalled that the apex bank had on October 26 last year announced that circulation of the newly redesigned N100, N200, N500 and N1000 naira notes would begin on December 15.
Mr Godwin Emefiele had added that the move was to counter terrorism financing, hoarding of banknotes by members of the public, with statistics showing that over 85 per cent of monies in circulation were outside the vaults of the commercial banks.
The old naira notes were to cease to be legal tender ton January 31 until it was extended to February 10 last week-Team@orientactualmags.com
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