The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) announced its plan to redesign some naira notes.
Some Nigerians on Twitter have called out a former presidential aspirant of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Adamu Garba, for advising the Nigerian Central Bank to retain English and Arabic languages in the newly designed naira notes.
SaharaReporters earlier reported that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) announced its plan to redesign some naira notes.
The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, who disclosed this while addressing journalists on Wednesday, said the new designs and issues will be effective from December 2022.
He advised Nigerians to take old notes to banks for the new notes.
According to Emefiele, the new notes include N200, N500 and N1000.
Adamu in a tweet on Wednesday expressed his support for the redesigning of the naira notes, saying it was long overdue
He further advised the CBN to retain the “two official languages of English and Arabic” while effecting the change in the Naira notes.
He wrote: “Redesigning the Naira is long overdue. One of the giant strides of CBN Gov. Godwin Emefiele. However, wide-ranging consultation & rapid awareness needs to be created.
“For trust’s sake, the two official languages of English & Arabic need to remain, in addition to the local ones.”
This comment generated backlash from netizens who viewed Adamu’s suggestion as wrong.
A Twitter user, Collins Obioha said, “Why do we need Arabic in the Naira notes? What trust does it give to the people out there. When politicians like you steal a larger amounts daily using govt as a means to create divide. Is Arabic our official language?”
“Of what benefits has the two languages brought to us since it has been there in our currency? We should rather include the main three known and constitutional and world recognize three languages we have on the note which is IGBO, Yoruba and hausa. This is our language,” another user, identified as Chiddility tweeted.
A Twitter user, Peter Pundit described Adamu’s suggestion as a misplaced priority, saying there are several socio-economic problems Nigeria is battling with currently.
He wrote: “Country faced with heavy inflation, with high debt profile, currently battling flood which will cause high food scarcity added with massive insecurity situation is only thinking of redesigning its currency, costing humongous amount as a way of solving its economic crisis.”