He claimed that the informal sector of the economy had been destroyed in recent weeks due to a lack of liquid cash.
The Northern Elders Forum (NEF) has stated that President Muhammadu Buhari is unwilling to summon the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, despite the hardships that Nigerians are experiencing as a result of the Naira redesign policy.
NEF Spokesman, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed stated this on Tuesday on Channels Television’s special election programme, alleging that the CBN's naira redesign policy and the resulting cash crunch demarketed the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the general elections.
“This money thing is a major demarketing thing for the APC,” Baba-Ahmed said.
“If the worst enemy of APC had designed astrategy for them to lose this election, he couldn’t have chosen a better fiasco around the reprinting of the naira.”
He claimed that the informal sector of the economy had been destroyed in recent weeks due to a lack of liquid cash.
The NEF spokesman said, “There is a lot of anger and to see a situation where the President rather appears unwilling or incapable of reining in Emefiele and say, ‘Listen, perhaps we can allow the old naira and the new naira co-exist for the next six months’.
“President Buhari apparently doesn’t listen to anybody. Emefiele says I will do what I should do because the President has got my back. And Nigerians are saying we know the governor of the CBN is not who is doing all these; it is the President.
“If the President doesn’t want all this suffering and considers the other options, the governor of the CBN won’t get away with these things he is getting away with.”
Following widespread public outrage, the CBN extended the deadline for exchanging old N200, N500, and N1,000 notes from January 31 to February 10, but the Supreme Court ruled that the Nigerian Government, the CBN, and commercial banks could not continue with the deadline until the issue was resolved on February 15.
At least seven APC states have already sued the Nigerian government.
However, the governor of the central bank insisted on Tuesday that the February 10 deadline for the validity of old notes remains in effect. Banks, gas stations, and other commercial enterprises have already begun to reject old notes as of February 10.