Taofeek Lawal – Abuja
The Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) has called on the Federal Government to reverse its Naira Redesign Policy which it said has brought untold hardship to Nigerians as they can no longer access their hard earned money in the banks. The party also urged the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, to resign from office.
The national chairman of PRP, Alhaji Falalu Bello, stated this at the presentation of the party’s manifesto to the media in Abuja on Friday.
According to Bello, any policy that denies citizens the access to their money is not good and is not a good policy. He said the withdrawal of over N2 trillion from circulation and printing of N300 billion by the CBN was a recipe to the crisis the country is presently passing through.
“Any policy that denies citizens the access to their money is not good and is not a good policy. It (the Naira Redesign Policy) is a man-made crisis which is avoidable. We ask the President to tell the CBN governor to return our money. Although President Muhammadu Buhari has just about three months to leave office, history beckons him to take for Nigeria masses some important decisions that will ease their livelihood, make lives more meaningful and begin to address corruption in the land which has made lives unbearable.
“An exercise that withdraws over N2 trillion and print only N300 billion with the result that people don’t have access to their legitimate credit balances and have not been given new currencies in place of the old ones they deposited is most certainly wrong, inhuman and could be said to be illegal as it does not pass the reasonable standard test put in the CBN Act of 2007.
“We therefore ask President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately instruct the CBN governor to return to Nigerians the old currencies he has caused them to deposit with Nigerian banks and allow those old currencies remain legal tender until the CBN prints enough currencies to replace new ones. This minimal, Nigerians expect of Mr President to ameliorate the hardship that ordinary Nigerians have been put into by the currency exchange of CBN Governor Emefiele. For the failure of this policy which made and still making Nigerians suffer, we ask that the CBN governor honourably resign failing which the President should fire him, the national chairman said.
Bello thereafter presented a 34-page manifesto titled ‘Compact With The People: Manifesto Of The PRP For 2023 Election’ which he said will address the problems the country is presently passing through under the APC government.
The manifesto, a six-point agenda, dwelled on revamping the economy, promotion of education and human capital development, national unity and genuine federalism, enhances national security and revamping of the extractive industry, oil, gas and solid minerals.
