APC Governors have called for the postponement of general elections.
The ruling All Progressives (APC) is pushing for the postponement of the 2023 general elections by a minimum of four weeks.
The move is being led by Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai, according to reliable sources in the party, who spoke to our correspondent.
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Recall that Ejes Gist News had earlier reported that the governments of Kaduna, Kogi, and Zamfara had dragged the Federal government before the Supreme Court to obtain a restraining order to prevent the full implementation of the CBN’s naira redesign policy.
The three northern states governors seeked the supreme court to grant them an interim injunction to prevent the Federal Government from carrying out its plan to end the timeframe within which the now-outdated 200, 500, and 1000 Naira denominations may no longer be legal tender on February 10 in a motion ex-parte filed on their behalf by their attorney, Abdul Hakeem Uthman Mustapha (SAN).
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In a twist of fate, the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, restrained the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, from extending the deadline for using the old naira notes. The court also told the CBN to put the new naira to full use.
On Monday, the judge in charge, Eleojo Enenche, gave the order in a case with the number FCT/HC/CV/2234/2023.
Action Alliance (AA), Action Peoples Party (APP), Allied Peoples Movement (APM), and National Rescue Movement (NRM) are the plaintiffs.
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Following their failure to get the court to stop the CBN from implementing the new policies, they decided to ask the president to mount pressure on INEC to postpone the election and blamed it on logistics challenges.
The source said, “The APC governors claimed that if the election holds on February 25, as scheduled by INEC, many Nigerians will not vote APC due to the pains caused by the new naira note policies.”
However, the president, Muhammadu Buhari, is yet to yield to their request.
Meanwhile, the Atiku Abubakar Presidential Campaign Council has rejected the idea, claiming that anyone who wants to alter the poll date is an enemy of Nigeria.
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Atiku’s campaign council also called on Nigerians and civil society organisations to mount pressure on Buhari and INEC to resist the move by the APC governors, spearheaded by Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai.
Sometimes I wonder if our leaders in Nigeria both civil and political have any idea on governing the people in a democracy! The CBN can redesign the Naira or remove any denomination from circulation but this is not a 30-day or 60-day operation. A country of 200million people would require at least 200-days or more given the banking facilities we have in Nigeria. Our country is under-banked and therefore a re-jig of our currency or any part thereof requires the new and old currency to remain in circulation Pari Passu for at least 6-months during which the old naira notes would have gone through the banking system and withdrawn from circulation and new Naira notes will be dispensed by our banks to replace the old notes being withdrawn from circulation. This is how currency withdrawal from circulation is done. For example, King Charles III replaced Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022, the new Bank of England Notes bearing his image will be introduced in May 2023 and the new notes and the old notes will continue in circulation side-by-side until the Bank of England withdraw the old notes from circulation by operations of the banking system. It is very disheartening that CBN is behaving as if we are on an isolated island not knowing what is going on in other parts of the world! The CBN should with immediate effect scrap the two-week deadline to exchange old naira notes for new ones and let the old and new notes circulate side by side for about 200 days during which our banking system would have withdrawn the old notes from circulation without any hardship on the people and the economy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The policy kicked off since October, is just that Nigerians like last minute
People with hard-earned wealth always keep them with the banks, except of course for some traders most especially in villages and good chunk of our unbanked. All in all, the policy is a good attempt by CBN which every patriotic Nigerian should support. A 3 months window is indeed sufficient for serious people to deposit their funds with their banks. But as Grace Omajemite rightly said, “Nigerians like last minute….”
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