Richard Anyebe
Media Personality, Toke Makinwa has tackled President Muhammadu Buhari the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) naira redesign policy/naira swap.
Since the new naira notes were introduced, Nigerians have been battling scarcity of the notes.
The development has resulted in long queues at banking halls, and Automated Teller Machines (ATM) points.
Following this difficulty, there have been protests in some parts of the country due to the scarcity of the new naira notes.
Kanyi Daily reported that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had given a deadline of January 31 for the use of old naira notes of N200, N500, and N1000 — but it extended it to February 10 due to a nationwide outcry by citizens.
How, Buhari in a national broadcast last Thursday morning extended the validity Of only the old N200 notes till April 10, 2023.
“I am addressing you as your democratically elected president to sympathise with you over the hardship being experienced as a result of the naira redesign policy.
“To further ease the supply pressures, particularly to our citizens, I have given approval to the CBN that the old N200 bank notes be released back into circulation and that it should also be allowed to circulate as legal tender with the new N200, N500, and N1000 banknotes for 60 days from February 10, 2023, to April 10, 2023, when the old N200 notes cease to be legal tender.“
Recall also that the CBN governor Godwin Emefiele had said the redesigning of naira notes would help to curb counterfeit notes, as well as hamper ramson payment to terrorists and kidnappers.
However, the majority of ordinary Nigerian believe that the policy by the CBN is targeted at politicians who have stashed the old naira notes at home, thus the new naira notes will render the stashed cash useless.
It is also believed that these politicians rely on vote buying to get into power. Nigeria’s general election is four days away.
The issue of vote buying remains a big challenge for Nigeria’s electoral system. It is widely believed that politicians buy votes from poor electorates on election days.
Taking to her official Twitter handle, Toke Makinwa argued that the president doing everything to make life difficult for the average Nigerian all in the name of a policy to protect vote buying.
Toke Makinwa wondered where Buhari kept all this energy in the last four years when he wanted to be re-elected.
She wrote, “Mr. President doing everything to make life difficult for the average Nigerian all in the name of new policy to protect vote buying, pls where was this energy in the last 4 years when he wanted to be re-elected??? When he wanted to come back for another hard 4 years? SMH.”
Mr President doing everything to make life difficult for the average Nigerian all in the name of new policy to protect vote buying, pls where was this energy in the last 4 years when he wanted to be re-elected??? When he wanted to come back for another hard 4 years? SMH
— Toke Makinwa (@tokstarr) February 21, 2023
In other news, Kanyi Daily reported that the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi has mourned the victims of the gas plant explosion in the Effurun area of Warri, Delta State.
