When governor of the Central Bank, Godwin Emefiele first announced the naira redesign policy in October 2022, one of those who first reacted to it was the Chief Executive Officer, Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE), Dr Muda Yusuf, who said it was difficult to see any compelling value proposition of the currency redesign idea.
Emefiele had said the policy was targeted at controlling currency in circulation as well as reducing currency counterfeiting and ransom payment to kidnappers and terrorists.
However, the CPPE boss had said the cost of such an action would be outrageous and disproportionate compared to the expected benefits advanced by the CBN.
Yusuf was reported to have said that the exercise had no monetary policy significance, stressing that “it will come with huge logistics costs, and avoidable dislocations to small businesses, most of whom are in the informal sector.”
According to him, there were more urgent issues that required the attention of the CBN, so the apex bank should save the citizens and the economy the trauma of this currency redesign.
“It is a distraction we can do without.”
With the benefit of hindsight, we can say Yusuf spoke like Nostradamus and Baba Vanga, the two mystics whose predictions about the future came to pass.
Nigerians have seen ‘shege’ since the implementation of this policy with the masses, those in the middle class and small businesses in the informal sector being the worst hit.
After the pronouncement by the CBN, it was rumoured that the move was a sucker punch to the political ambitions of politicians who had stashed cash away for the purpose of campaigns.
President Muhammadu Buhari gave life to the rumours in November 2022, when he was asked during an interview if there was going to be a change in the policy, and he responded that there will be no going back as three months was enough time for anyone to return money, no matter how much to the banks. He went on to say that “…nobody will be allowed to mobilise resources and thugs to intimidate people in any constituency.”
Similarly, in his address to the nation on February 16, the president alluded to this when he said “Fellow citizens, on the 25th of February, 2023 the nation would be electing a new President and National Assembly members. I am aware that this new monetary policy has also contributed immensely to the minimization of the influence of money in politics.
“This is a positive departure from the past and represents a bold legacy step by this administration, towards laying a strong foundation for free and fair elections.”
The president’s address was 13 days after he’d asked for seven days to resolve the cash crunch causes by the policy. Never mind that he offered no apology or gave any cogent reason why the issue had persisted and defied solutions.
I do not quite like conspiracy theories but the insistence on implementation of the policy, in spite the many issues it has been met with, beggars reasoning and lends credence to all that is being said in the grapevine about the real motive behind the policy.
Interestingly, while members of the All Progressives Congress (APC), including governors, appointees and cabinet ministers who should ordinarily be supporting the policy have roundly kicked against it, the opposition political parties have been supporting it as to them, it has either leveled the playing field or probably given them an upper hand to win the election.
If the plan was to stop one man, isn’t it obvious now that more people are suffering and the entire economy of the country, especially the informal sector is almost being brought to its knees?
Presidential candidates of the Labour Party and Peoples Democratic Party, Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar, respectively, and their campaign councils had in the early days of the implementation of the policy, backed the CBN and President Buhari and rebuffed calls for extension of the February 10 deadline.
Atiku, in particular, had said any further extension would destroy the purpose and objective of the policy.
In fact, two governors of the PDP have applied to be joined as respondents in the suit filed by some APC governors against the federal government and the CBN before the Supreme Court challenging the policy.
Now that it’s biting hard, everyone is feeling the pinch.
Atiku recently backtracked and called on the CBN to allow commercial banks accept deposits of the old naira notes and urgently release the new notes to ease the suffering of masses in getting access to their “legitimately earned money.”
“The CBN currency policy is hurting ordinary citizens and those who legitimately earned their money. The apex bank should, as a matter of urgency, allow commercial banks to join the CBN in the collection of the deposits of old N500 and N1000 notes.
“The new currency should be immediately made available in sufficient quantities to alleviate the suffering of the masses. I assure you that when we come to power by the mandate of your votes, the PDP administration will not allow any Nigerian who legitimately earned their money to lose a single kobo of it.
“You can take that promise to the bank because our aim is to create prosperity and not to impoverish our people,” Atiku said.
This is the same thing the APC governors have been shouting themselves hoarse over.
People are suffering and dying as a result of the harsh effects of this policy.
What then is the gain?
Even the billions of the new notes the CBN claims to have irculated is neither on the streets nor in the markets. So where is the money?
Has it found its way back to those against whom the policy was purportedly made?
Indeed, Emefiele himself while addressing the diplomatic community recently, said the apex bank had noticed that some politicians were buying the new N200, N500 and N1, 000 for political purposes.
With unprecedented scarcity of cash and citizens in direct straits, will votes not be sold cheaper this time, as people just need cash to be able to exchange for food?
There have been reports of people who died in hospitals because they didn’t have cash and hospitals could not commence treatment because they didn’t get proof of payment by electronic transfer as a result of the pressure on banks’ infrastructure which has exposed it as very weak and inadequate to cater to the needs of the cashless policy being foisted on the country.
The masses and people in the middle class who had in the early days, said only politicians who had stashed money away for election (read vote buying) were complaining about the policy, have backtracked since they started experiencing difficulty accessing their money.
Imagine spending hours at the bank or ATM and all you’re able to get is a meagre N2000, the kind of money that leaves you confused about what to buy and not buy.
The opposition that thought it’ll benefit from the policy and went all out in support of it has also been hard hit and crying wolf.
The opposition parties had canvassed for the closure of higher institutions, saying schools were closed due to ASUU strike during the continuous voter registration exercise and so they’d need to go back home to vote. They’d argued that not closing the schools would amount to disenfranchisement of those students.
Now that universities and polytechnics have been closed, students cannot travel to vote as a result of the scarcity of cash.
People have lost their lives, bank property have been destroyed across the country by angry Nigerians who simply want access to their money, bank workers now sneak to work and cannot wear any branded apparels for fear of attacks, traders are unable to sell and are daily throwing away perishable foods and commuters are stranded on the streets as transporters insist on cash payment.
To those who are behind this policy, it does not matter if the whole house is burnt in the pursuit of a rat and it’s such a shame.
