Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, (HURIWA), on Monday, said that the existing severe scarcity of newly introduced Naira notes in most banks across Nigeria is a huge threat to national security.
The right group said the manifest inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria is a pointer to why Nigeria needs an independent Governor of the Central Bank and not the politically tainted and compromised head that we have now.
HURIWA’s National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, in a statement, observed the organised chaos and rancorous situation of lack of new Naira notes and the attendant hardships experienced by millions of commoners in Aba, Abia State, Onitsha Anambra State, Lagos, Kano and Kafanchan in Kaduna State,
He said: “HURIWA is of the opinion that the haste with which the redesigning project of the national currency was handled by the Governor of CBN and President Muhammadu Buhari is shrouded in politically organised witch-hunt and confusion.
“How can a governor of the CBN be carrying out such a monumental financial initiative about the same time that he couldn’t move freely due to fear of arrest by the Department of State Services on allegations of suspected financing of terrorism and also the governor is facing a court case in the USA allegedly filed by his brother in law over purported failed joint business ventures?
“Then again how is it that the CBN governor is going about this exercise as if he is targeting politicians thereby making an economic policy to become politically tainted thereby exposing the otherwise national finance policy that is lofty to become polluted by political infighting even amongst the ruling All Progressives Congress under whose platform this same governor of CBN sought unsuccessfully to be made the handpicked Presidential candidate of APC?.
“Is the CBN Governor waging a political vendetta but by so doing exposing millions of Nigerian commoners to unwarranted but excruciating hardships encountered in their frantic search for the artificially scarce new Naira notes which are sold from the backdoor by CBN and money deposit banks to politicians for votes buying?”
HURIWA is therefore calling on President Muhammadu Buhari to do the needful to check the internal saboteurs within the banking system that are hijacking the new notes from CBN and selling them to politicians and rich elites.
HURIWA warned President Buhari of the possibility of this poorly implemented new naira policy instigating imminent street protests because of the untold starvation that this badly implemented redesigned Naira notes initiative that is an economic nightmare for poor Nigerians is causing millions of Nigerians who can’t access the new notes and can’t use the old notes to buy foods for their survival because most food items sellers are rejecting the old notes which still have up until February 10th to become invalidated.
HURIWA recalled that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has extended the deadline for the exchange of old naira notes by 10 days after he persistently failed to listen to the clarion call for extension and for observation of best global practices in the redistribution of the new notes to stop any class of people from hijacking the notes because of the electioneering period that we are in.
