Gov. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, President Muhammad Buhari, Gov. Nasir El-Rufai
By Our Reporter
Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje and his Kaduna counterpart, Mallam El-Rufai have criticised the new naira policy
While Gunduje said the Naira notes redesign policy brought by Buhari-led government is beyond a plot against any presidential ambition but targeted at truncating democracy.
El-Rufai said despite Buhari new directive that only N200 note would be legal tender till April 10, Kaduna will continue to spend the old naira notes.
Ganduje said this late Wednesday when he met with the Forum of Former Parliamentarians, North-west zone, who came to intimate him of their resolve to support the presidential ambition of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Recall that Kano is among the state governments that are before the Supreme Court to challenge the legality of the policy and the governor has threatened to shut down any business in the state that refused to accept the old Naira notes as legal tenders.
Ganduje asked why the president and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Godwin Emefiele, did not think of the policy seven years ago and why it has to be at the eve of an election.
“What is wrong with doing it after elections? Why didn’t he do this in the past seven years? What is the meaning of all these? This CBN governor is not a politician, he doesn’t know anything about politics. How can a politician enjoy this policy? Imagine how as a leader you watch banks engulfed by fire, if not that the democracy has decayed, will that be possible?
“How is it possible when the World Bank said the policy is wrong, IMF said its is wrong, other leaders said it is wrong, but you said you need seven days to think over it. The poor man selling vegetable will have his goods rotten (before end of the thinking period), that is why I close down one supermarket for rejecting the old notes. The Supreme court has said the old notes are still a legal tender, that is why any bank that refuses to collect, I will revoke their certificate and if do that they cannot work,” the governor said promising that Tinubu would revoke the policy after the election.
On his part El-Rufai dared Buhari on the naira redesign policy, he said the old notes remain legal tender in the state.
El-Rufai in a statewide address on Thursday night, said the notes remain legal tender until Supreme Court of Nigeria decides otherwise.
“For the avoidance of doubt, all the old and new notes shall remain in use as legal tender in Kaduna State until the Supreme Court of Nigeria decides otherwise.
“I therefore appeal to all residents of Kaduna State to continue to use the old and new notes side by side without any fear. The Kaduna State Government and its agencies shall seal any facility that refuses to accept the old notes as legal tender and prosecute the owners.
“If need be, we shall take further consequential actions according to the law. The address by the President earlier this morning limiting the legal tender status of old notes to only N200 amounts to total disregard and disobedience of the ruling of February 8th which was extended further yesterday by the Supreme Court.
“The misguided action of the Attorney-General to mislead the President into engaging in this public violation of the order of the highest court of the land shows how desperate the policy architects are to cause national chaos, by showing open contempt for the judiciary.
“The decision to recognise only N200 as legal tender till April that the President announced this morning was offered to the state governments as part of proposals for an out-of-court settlement three days ago.
“The Federal Government asserted that this was offered because all the ‘old’ N1,000 and N500 notes had been destroyed. We rejected the offer and proved to the officials that not a single higher denomination note had been destroyed.
“We also believe that circulating N200 only to be inadequate in alleviating the suffering that we see every day. We insisted that all the components of the Supreme Court order should be complied with,” he said.
