HURIWA which stated on Saturday, in statement backed the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, who warned of “serious consequences on the value of the naira against other foreign currencies” if the nation's apex Bank went on with the plan to redesign the N200, N500, and N1,000 notes.
The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has warned that planned redesign of the three banknotes by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will tumble the value of the naira and further destabilise the economy.
HURIWA which stated on Saturday, in statement backed the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, who warned of “serious consequences on the value of the naira against other foreign currencies” if the nation's apex Bank went on with the plan to redesign the N200, N500, and N1,000 notes.
SaharaReporters reported that Nigeria's apex Bank had on Wednesday, announced its plan to redesign some naira notes.
The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, had while announcing the plan during a press conference noted that the new design notes will be effective from December 2022.
While advising Nigerians to take old notes to banks for the new notes, Emefiele had said the affected new notes would include N200, N500 and N1000.
Aligning with the finance minister's opposition to the plan, HURIWA in the statement signed by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, described the plan as a "money-guzzling gambit" that would destabilise the economy.
The group said the CBN Governor had again proved his incompetence through the sham plan best described as motion without movement.
It however, called on the National Assembly to move for the impeachment of the apex bank governor as President Muhammadu Buhari has refused to sack him and put an end to Nigeria’s fiscal woes.
The statement partly read, “Nigeria is indeed troubled with a so-disorganised Federal Government to the extent that the finance minister now openly disagrees with the CBN governor over the country’s cardinal fiscal policies! No doubt, this portends danger to the nation’s economy and financial management.
“The discordance and embarrassing public spat between Ahmad and Emefiele demonstrate the lack of national planning and inter-agency and inter-ministerial collaboration of top echelons of the regime of President Muhammadu Buhari.
“This is not the first of such disgraceful feuds amongst Buhari’s ministries and agencies. For months now, the Police Service Commission and the Nigeria Police Force have engaged in a protracted dispute over the recruitment of police constables.
“In April 2021, the National Bureau of Statistics took to Twitter to fight dirty with the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige for faulting its employment statistics. The examples are endless under Buhari, yet his it-does-not-concern-me pose.
“HURIWA dismisses the redesigning of the naira as a money-guzzling gambit that will tumble the value of the naira to the dollars as seen at the moment already after the argument by the finance minister.
“We call on the National Assembly to stop the CBN governor or impeach him by 2/3 majority to compel Buhari to sack him.”