Naira Redesign: Buhari out to truncate Nigeria's democracy, Ganduje fumes

Kano State governor, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje has alleged that the naira redesign policy of President Muhammadu Buhari is aimed at truncating Nigeria’s democracy.

Telescope.ng reports that Ganduje spoke late Wednesday in Kano when he met with the Forum of Former Parliamentarians, North-West zone, that visited to intimate him of their resolve to support the presidential ambition of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

Kano State is one of the states before the Supreme Court challenging the legality of the policy. Ganduje’s allegation came in the wake of the hardship Nigerians are passing through in accessing the new N200, N500 and N1, 000 notes.

President Buhari had in his address to Nigerians on Thursday said the naira swap was meant to tame inflation and other infractions. The Kano governor is previously not known for openly criticising President Buhari as he had been one of the people that worked hard to sell the president to the electorate.

Ganduje said it was unfortunate that despite the collective efforts made by the APC to ensure Buhari’s election victories in 2015 and 2019 after several losses, the president had resolved to pay the party and those that supported him back by destroying the party that brought him to power.

He said, “Imagine someone has been contesting without winning elections until after a merger was formed. He won the election and spent four years and re-contested again and he won, now that he is about to go, he is doing nothing but to destroy the party that elected him,” Ganduje said.

On the policy, Ganduje asked why the president and CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele did not think of the policy seven years ago and why it had to be on the eve of an election.

He said: “What is wrong with doing it after elections? Why hasn’t he done this in the past seven years? What is the meaning of all these? This CBN governor is not a politician; he doesn’t know anything about politics. How can a politician enjoy this policy? Imagine how as a leader you watch banks engulfed by fire, if not that the democracy has decayed, will that be possible?

“How is it possible when the World Bank said the policy is wrong, the IMF said it is wrong, other leaders said it is wrong, but you said you need seven days to think over it? The poor man selling vegetables will have his goods rotten (before the end of the thinking period), that is why I close down one supermarket for rejecting the old notes. The Supreme Court has said the old notes are still a legal tender, that is why any bank that refuses to collect, I will revoke their certificate and if they do that, they cannot work.”

Ganduje also stated that Tinubu would revoke the policy after the election. He said the policy was not that of the ruling party but they are aware this is part of the plot to ensure elections do not hold, saying the development is similar to how MKO Abiola was denied of being president.

“It was like this at the time of SDP with the Association of Better Nigeria (ABN); the CBN governor is the ABN of this dispensation.

“Therefore, this is even beyond not wanting someone to win the election; it is democracy itself they don’t want. They want to set up an interim government committee like that of (Ernest) Shonekan.