Femi Fani-Kayode, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, has alleged the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, has weaponised the apex bank and that he wants to derail the country’s democracy by provoking an uprising.
The former minister of aviation made the statement in a post via his verified Twitter handle on Tuesday, January 31, 2023.
Recall that the CBN had announced January 31, 2023, as the deadline for swapping old naira notes with new ones.
With a few days to the deadline, Nigerians had lamented their inability to exchange their old notes with the redesigned ones. However, the CBN extended the deadline to February 10.
Fani-Kayode claimed Emefiele wanted to cause a crisis and provoke an uprising against the government, which would pave the way for an Interim National Government, ING.
He also said the CBN governor has yet to make a plan to release enough new naira notes and intends to starve the people of cash and drive them to rage out of frustration.
Emefiele has weaponsed the CBN and is an enemy of democracy. The policy of cancelling old notes must be totally cancelled until AFTER the election and then done lawfully. He wants to cause a crisis, provoke a people's uprising, derail our democracy and pave the way for an ING. 1/
— Femi Fani-Kayode (@realFFK) January 31, 2023
He wrote, ”Emefiele has weaponised the CBN and is an enemy of democracy. The policy of cancelling old notes must be totally cancelled until AFTER the election and then done lawfully. He wants to cause a crisis, provoke a people’s uprising, derail our democracy, and pave the way for an ING.
”He has NO plans to release enough new naira notes any time soon. He wants to STARVE the people of cash & drive them to rage out of frustration. This is not about politics but about stoking up protest & revolution. This is subversion & destabilisation. He must be stopped & caged!”
‘It’s illegal to reject old naira before January 31’ – CBN Cautions As Churches, Business Stop Collection
The Zamfara State branch of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has said rejecting the old Naira notes before the deadline given by the apex bank is illegal and punishable by law.
The CBN, therefore, directed the police to arrest those who refuse to collect the old notes, pointing out that they are still legal tender until after the 31st January 2023 deadline.
Daily Post gathered that the apex bank has officially directed five of the commercial banks in the state to, as a matter of urgency, release new notes, threatening to sanction them if they failed to adhere to the directive.
Commenting on the scarcity of new notes during a sensitization workshop organised by the Association of Point of Sales, POS, operators in the state held on Thursday, January 26, 2023, at Maryam Hall in Gusau, the controller of CBN in the state, Mallam Buhari Abbas, gave reasons why the apex bank introduced the new notes.
Abbas, therefore, urged operators of POS to consider and assist in opening a new bank account for anyone who wants to deposit money and has no account.
“You should do selfless service by not allowing people to lose their money because they don’t have accounts, assist, help those who want to deposit their money”, he added.
According to him, the CBN had introduced new notes to reduce notes being in circulation in the hand of the public.
“More than 80% of Naira notes were in the hands of people, and the CBN has studied this and decided to introduce the policy to reduce the notes at hand, and the policy will harmonize the interest rate,” he said.
He noted that introducing the new CBN policy was to bring more development to the country, saying that the policy, if properly utilized, would boost businesses.
Source: Daily Post
