New naira: CBN grinding Nigeria to a halt –Group
A pressure group under the aegis of the North-South Progressive Stakeholders on Tuesday berated the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, saying his “failed” policy is grinding the Nigerian economy to a halt.
The development is coming hours after Emefiele ignored the Supreme Court ruling and insisted on going ahead with its February 10 deadline for withdrawal of the old N200, N500 and N1000 notes.
The CBN broke the news during a visit to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to discuss the monetary and currency redesign policy of the bank.
According to him, since the situation is substantially calming down following the commencement of over-the-counter payments to complement ATM disbursements, there shouldn’t be a need to consider any shift from the earlier deadline.
But the North-South Progressive Stakeholders knocked the CBN for being insensitive to the plight of Nigerians and urged him to allow common sense prevail.
Speaking at a press conference held in Abuja, Co-Convener of the alliance, Ayobami Oyalowo expressed concerns that if Emefiele ‘failed’ policy is not properly addressed, it may bring disrepute to the good intentions of the administration of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.).
He said, “It is no longer news that Nigerians are suffering untold hardship as a result of ill-timed, myopic and poorly implemented monetary policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria, which in a bid to instantly transform the country to a cashless economy has succeeded in creating an unprecedented economic hardship attributed partly to some of its policies in the past.
“The CBN has sucked out blood from the heart of our economy. While banks across the country are under lock and key, queues at ATM points are growing by the day. In major Nigerian cities like Kano, Lagos, Port Harcourt , Enugu, Asaba and Maiduguri, you could count the number of banks that are in operation, since there are no cash to service the growing list of customers requesting for their money.
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“Farmers are losing their harvest because nobody is buying them. The few who are lucky to get buyers are forced to sell at ridiculously cheap prices just to dispose of what they have. The informal sector is grinding to a halt and a yet -to-be determined amount of jobs are being lost on a daily basis, because the life blood of their operations have been disrupted by a policy the management of the CBN have no capacity to actualise. We have seen video evidence of elderly men and women writhing in pain, some of them crying their hearts out because they cannot access their own money to buy drugs, food or meet other basic needs.
“Despite these glaring and sad realities, the Central Bank of Nigeria, under the management of Godwin Emefiele has refused to review the failed policy and make amends where necessary. Instead, the CBN Governor has continued to lie to the Nigerian people, claiming to have enough money in circulation, while blaming the banks for creating the scarcity of the new notes, even when many of them do not have access to the currency he claimed is widely in circulation. Not even the intervention by the National Council of States who advised that the old notes be recirculated has yielded any action from Emefiele. Even the calls by International Monetary Fund, The World Bank and many other national and international bodies have been ignored by the CBN governor.
“The CBN under Emefiele is simply playing the ostrich, thus putting a spammer in the wheel of the progress made by the President Buhari led administration in the last eight years.”
New naira: CBN grinding Nigeria to a halt –Group
