Kaduna State governor, Nasiru El-Rufai has claimed that the Central Bank of Nigeria dumped what was approved by President Muhammadu on the Naira redesign policy, and went ahead to implement what best suit their agenda.
In a statement titled: ‘Nigeria Update: ABC of Currency Redesign vs. XYZ of Cash Confiscation Explained’, and posted on Twitter, Sunday night claimed that while the President approved the redesign of the N200, N500, and N1000 notes, the CBN only did recolouring on the Naira notes.
“Currency redesign was approved by the President and announced. Currency recolouring resulted,” El-Rufai said.
Also, according to the governor, the President approved a currency swap, which means that Nigerians were meant to deposit their old notes to the banks and receive the equivalents in return, while the CBN embarked on Naira confiscation instead.
“Currency swap was envisaged by s.20(3) of the Central Bank of Nigeria Act as approved by PMB. Swap means I take N100,000 to the bank in old notes & I receive N100,000 immediately in new notes. No more, no less,” he said.
The Governor said that the apex bank only printed N400 billion and withdrew over N2trn from the system during the implementation of the cash swap, alleging that it unlawfully confiscated the naira notes, leading to the collapse of trade and exchange in the country and brought suffering impoverishment, and economic contraction.
“The policy objective was derailed into a deliberate national fiasco to sabotage the elections in the name of preventing vote-buying. All efforts to get CBN to implement what was lawfully approved failed.
“Some State Governments had no choice but to approach the Supreme Court for adjudication,” he said, insisting that the ruling All Progressives Congress and all the Governors of the party are unanimous that the Federal Government must review the implementation of the new policy.
He insisted on total compliance with the subsisting order of the apex court until judgment is passed on the matter.