Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje of Kano State has alleged that the naira redesign policy of accused President Muhammadu Buhari of destroying the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Ganduje who spoke late Wednesday in Kano expressed regret, saying that it Buhari was paying back those who supported him to win the 2015 and 2019 general elections by destroying the APC.
He said, “Imagine someone who has been contesting without winning elections until after a merger was formed. He won the election and spent four years and re-contested and he won, now that he is about to go, he is doing nothing but to destroy the party that elected him,” Ganduje said.
Ganduje who spoke when he met with the Forum of Former Parliamentarians, North-West zone, that visited to intimate him of their resolve to support the presidential ambition of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), explained that Buhari was using the Naita redesign policy as a guise to truncate Nigeria’s democracy.
Kano State is one of the states before the Supreme Court challenging the legality of the policy. Ganduje’s allegation came in the wake of the hardship Nigerians are passing through in accessing the new N200, N500 and N1, 000 notes.
President Buhari had in his address to Nigerians on Thursday said the naira swap was meant to tame inflation and other infractions. The Kano governor is previously not known for openly criticising President Buhari as he had been one of the people that worked hard to sell the president to the electorate.
Ganduje questioned Buhari and CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele’s rationale on the timing of the policy seven years ago and why it had to be on the eve of an election.
“What is wrong with doing it after elections? Why hasn’t he done this in the past seven years? What is the meaning of all these? This CBN governor is not a politician; he doesn’t know anything about politics. How can a politician enjoy this policy? Imagine how as a leader you watch banks engulfed by fire, if not that the democracy has decayed, will that be possible?
“How is it possible when the World Bank said the policy is wrong, the IMF said it is wrong, other leaders said it is wrong, but you said you need seven days to think over it? The poor man selling vegetables will have his goods rotten (before the end of the thinking period), that is why I close down one supermarket for rejecting the old notes.
Ganduje recalled judgement of the Supreme Court nullified the naira redesign policy, permitting that old notes are still a legal tender, adding that that was pursuant that apex court judgement that he threatened to revoke the certificate of any bank in the state that failed to comply with the order.
Ganduje also stated that Tinubu would revoke the policy after the election, quoting the APC flag bearer as saying the policy was not that of the ruling party but a plot to ensure elections do not hold, adding that the development is similar to how MKO Abiola was denied being president.
“It was like this at the time of SDP with the Association of Better Nigeria (ABN); the CBN governor is the ABN of this dispensation.
“Therefore, this is even beyond not wanting someone to win the election; it is democracy itself they don’t want. They want to set up an interim government committee like that of (Ernest) Shonekan.
“Which credible politician do you think they can put to head such a committee? Except you just bring people that do not represent the masses but their families, those are the ones you can bring to form interim government,” he said, adding that these people will be puppeteer to ensure only the candidate of their choice emerges victorious.
