…Appeals to banks, and Nigerians to stop sabotaging the project
The Pan Yoruba socio-political organization, Afenifere, has appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari that the seven-day request he made to resolve the problems associated with the cash crunch in the country is too long, and advised that the old and new notes should continue to circulate for at least next 3 months.
The socio-political organization, in a press statement on Saturday signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Comrade Jare Ajayi, stated that the seven days’ request by President Buhari doesn’t appreciate the intensity of the pains Nigerians are going through in attempts to obtain cash from their accounts in banks across the country.
The organization noted that many lives have been lost already just as social and economic activities have bee paralyzedd.
The statement reads, “For the nation to have to wait for another seven days is to say that the people can continue to go on suffering and lives can continue to be lost and that businesses continue to cripple”
According to the organization, the President said that he would take a decision ‘one way or the other’ within the seven days that the new deadline for the currency exchange remains, stressing that Garba Shehu, the President’s spokesman, made the position known after his (Buhari) meeting with members of the Progressive Governors Forum at the State House last Friday.
“The governors had met the President to inform him of the excruciating pains Nigerians are going through in attempts to withdraw money from the banks and exchange the outgoing naira notes with new ones.
“The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) last year October, came up with redesigned notes for N1,000, N500, and N200. It stated that the deadline to replace the old notes with new ones was January 31, 2023. But by that time, millions of Nigerians have not been able to exchange their currencies, not because they didn’t mean to do so or didn’t make efforts. They couldn’t get the new notes because the commercial banks that were supposed to give them the notes complained that they did not get enough supply from the CBN, ” the statement reads.
“It was learned that Progressive Governors Forum had appealed to the President to reconsider his stance especially as the policy was threatening the “good records of the administration in transforming the economy.” As of the time this statement is being issued, there has been no indication that the President is prepared to ‘act quickly’.
“This was what prompted Afenifere to urge the President to “act fast because lives and economies of Nigerians are seriously in danger as a result of the difficulties in getting cash and fuel”.
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