Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, has berated the former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele, over his infamous action on the redesigned Naira notes, saying that the naira swap policy, introduced before the last general elections, was meant to disrupt the conduct of the polls.
Emefiele had in October 2022, announced the introduction of new naira notes of N200, N500 and N1,000 and declared that the old naira notes would remain legal tender until January 31, 2023.
This required the swapping of the old naira notes with the re-designed currencies before the expiration of the deadline.
Emefiele had also claimed that the policy was meant to migrate the country from a cash-based to cashless economy.
He further revealed that as at September 2022, N2.73 trillion out of the N3.23 trillion in circulation was outside of the banking system.
But the currency redesign policy resulted in unprecedented suffering of Nigerians and untold hardship for the citizens.
Speaking on the floor of the Senate on Tuesday during the screening of Dr Olayemi Cardoso, nominee for the position of CBN governor and four deputy governor nominees for the apex bank, Akapbio asked Cardoso if he would also meddle in politics like his predecessor.
Although he did not mention the name of Emefiele, it was clear that he was referring to the former CBN Governor.
He said: “CBN Governor, will you uphold the integrity, steadfastness to resist when politicians come to you to join the presidential race and display your posters even as a sitting CBN Governor in political conventions?
“Will you rush to display your profile electronically at political conventions while sitting as a governor because politicians have told you that you have enough money in CBN to do it?
“Don’t forget the fact that the money in the Central Bank isn’t for you. Will you have the courage to resist the temptation to listen to politicians and throw your hat into the ring and go back to your office and sit as CBN governor?
“Will you rush to sabotage the election in Nigeria by going for new notes, two days to the election when no country in the world changes new notes within one year, you do you in 14 days or 11 to see how you can sabotage the election in Nigeria?”
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