A civil society organisation, Centre for Social and Economic Rights (CSER), has condemned in strongest terms the naira redesign policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) due to the untold trauma, hardship, pain and suffering it has inflicted on innocent Nigerians and businesses in the last couple of weeks, describing it as threat to democracy and national security.
CSER made this declaration in a press statement issued on Tuesday in Lagos by its Executive Director, Nelson Ekujumi, the group, and further described the policy as punitive, wicked, satanic, irresponsible, insensitive and provocative.
This was just as the group quickly recalled that the policy “was initially applauded as laudable by even CSER in another press statement of the 29th of January 2023 when the deadline for phasing out old naira notes as a legal tender was extended till February 10 and it’s redeemable status extended to 17th February 2023”.
“In the last two weeks based on our physical monitoring and observation of developments, the pains, sufferings, trauma, threat to public peace and security that this naira redesign policy has generated within the polity, has exposed to any discerning mind, that the CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, and his associates have employed the naira redesign policy as a ploy to unveil their sinister agenda of inflicting untold hardship, pains and incite Nigerians to anarchy in order to truncate the peaceful conduct of the 2023 General Elections.
“We have watched in horror how innocent Nigerians have been subjected to unimaginable sufferings in queues at banks, ATM’s points, POS operators points, etc to withdraw their hard earned money to no avail on a daily basis and despite the extension of the deadline on the 29th January 2023, the situation has gotten worse across the country and there is no end in sight,” the group stated.
“What is even more painful is the exploitation and extortion generated by this wicked and anti people naira redesign policy, whereby innocent and hardworking Nigerians are fleeced of their money as they are forced to pay commission as high as N6000 in exchange for cash of N20,000.
“Infact, CSER has been inundated with calls of different phases of extortion that makes one to wonder that only a sadist and a degenerate institution will be happy to see people undergo such amount of torture and suffering in order to take possession of what legitimately belongs to them,” CSER stated.
“Even as we speak, the CBN is in default of enforcing and monitoring the implementation of it’s directive issued to deposit money banks via a memo dated 6th December 2022, whereby it instructed banks and other financial institutions to pay customers only a maximum of N20, 000 daily via ATM’s and that it should be in the N200 naira denomination.
“Till date, since about two weeks ago, customers have been unable to access above N5,000 daily from their personal accounts, businesses are gradually winding down and dying because customers and petty traders who engage in little daily cash transactions for daily needs have been denied their legitimate money warehoused in the banks.
“By this amount of wickedness unleashed, suffering and torture of innocent Nigerians and businesses by the CBN, the little gains accruing from the advocacy of banking culture that we have struggled for over the years among our rural populace, has obviously been eroded and it is sad and unfortunate.
“The traumatising aspect of the wickedness by CBN and its associates in inflicting pains and hardship on Nigerians by this policy which has revealed the sinister plot of Mr Emefiele and his cohorts, is the effrontery in mobilising groups, political parties and politicians to hold rallies, press conferences and even issue shameless threats of a boycott of the 2023 general elections if the naira redesign policy is reversed and the pains of Nigerians ameliorated. We are confident that these agents of anarchy and their sponsors will fail because the victory of evil over good is just temporary,” the group added.
