A group comprising of several Civil Society Organizations in Nigeria, known as the Civil Society Organizations Central Coordinating Council on Tuesday said it uncovered plot by ten governors to make Nigeria ungovernable over new Naira policy.
The group, in a press conference on the state of the nation, said this policy is facing a syndicated attack from a group of Governors they termed the G10 Governors, who have vowed that this new Naira policy will not see the light of the day.
Speaking on behalf of the group, the national convener Obed Okwukwe, alleged that 10 Govs plotting to undermine Buhari governew currency policy with instigated violence.
According to him, the governors are willing to go the extra mile including making the country ungovernable and undermining constitutional governance and bring the entire country to a halt all for their own selfish reasons.
The group while reiterating its support for naira swap Fehruary 10 deadline, passed vote of confidence on President Muhammadu Buhari and CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele, saying the policy is master stroke against corruption and vote buying.
The statement reads, “Last week, we addressed Nigerians on behalf of the Nigerian civil society community. Among other things, we passed a Vote of confidence on the New Naira Policy and on both President Muhammadu Buhari and Central Bank Governor Mr. Godwin Emefiele.
“We also briefed the nation on the feelings of Nigerians on the New Naira policy, clearly stated our views and position on the Exparte orders of the Supreme Court and pointedly stated that it was mere subterfuge that the Governors who approached the Supreme Court deployed and the actions were not in any way guided by the love of their people.
“ince the implementation of the new Naira policy, Nigerians and indeed the system have started seeing the gains. Except for the hitches of the unavailability of cash particularly for small businesses, which is caused by sabotage from those who do not want the policy so they can continue with their illicit trade, other major indicators show that the impact of the policy on our economy is quite positive.
Also on security the impact is being felt as kidnappers now know that there is no cash to pay for ransom. On our electoral process it is now obvious to Nigerians that it is only the vote buyers that are complaining.This policy is facing a syndicated attack from a group of Governor who we have termed the G10 Governors.
These Governors have vowed that this policy will not see the light of the day. They are willing to go the extra mile including making our country ungovernable and undermining constitutional governance and bring the entire country to a halt all for their own reasons which are selfish.
Gentlemen, money moves in cycles. Banks pay out money and money is paid into banks.That is how cash circulates in an economy. So do we not wonder why banks pay out money and the money is not paid back into the bank? These Governors are mopping up the money and stopping it from circulation.
The CBN had announced that it deployed N300 billion in cash as the first tranche of cash it disbursed. We all can agree that the money was hijacked and did not trickle down to the people and the people who took hold of it from the Commercial banks have not brought it out to circulate.
They are withholding the money using various means including deploying agents who use multiple ATM cards to withdraw the money, colluding with their banker agents to continue to trap the moneys in the banks and buying off cash from business places that ordinarily make huge cash transactions like petrol stations, supermarkets and departmental stores.
This has made some of these businesses insist on only cash payment as the profit they make from the sales of the Naira covers for the loss of business from those who do not have the cash to pay.Gentlemen may we now inform you that we have uncovered a grand plot, I repeat, we have uncovered a grand plot by 10 Governors who have resolved to make Nigeria ungovernable for President Muhammadu Buhari if he refuses to reverse the new Naira policy. It is amazing to note that the Governors behind this plot were the same Governors a couple of years ago took advantage of every opportunity to praise President Muhammadu Buhari to high heavens.
However, obviously because the second tenure is coming to an end, these Governors now believe that the President is not deserving of their respect. That is quite hypocritical. It means all they were showing the President was sycophantic solidarity hence we must therefore remind them at this point in time that President Muhammadu Buhari is and still remains the President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria until the 29th May, 2023 and not one day before.
Unfortunately, these Governors have switched allegiance to a new godfather not minding that he is yet to win the Presidential election. They are willing to dare constitutional governance and do anything including creating anarchy just to enthrone him and achieve their narrow political ambitions. Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State as you all know has announced that once their candidate wins, they would cancel the new Naira policy.
We therefore ask, how many legacies of the President Buhari administration will El-Rufai demand that the new government they intend to form cancel and revers? How many other anti-corruption policies of President Buhari will be reversed if Governor El-rufai and co attain this power which they so desperately seek? Maybe the Whistleblower policy of the President will go alongside some other anti-corruption legislations.Gentlemen, our intelligence shows there will be intensified cash-scarcity drama across the geopolitical zones.
People will pretend to collapse, people will go naked. there will be pre-arranged fights and many other things to press home their demands. Many people have been activated to make this happen. Groups have also been mobilized to daily report to at various bank ATM locations to always stand around and help create the impression and make it look like there are crowds at the banks who are not being attended to. Scenes will be created and this is expected to put more pressure on the system and lead to the abandonment or reversal of the policy.It must be noted that this policy has succeeded in reducing the financial recklessness, money laundering and vote buying capacities of these governors hence the ferocious fight they are giving the policy.
If like they say that there concern is the suffering poor citizens in their states, one would now ask, Why have they not thought out any ideas that could make the policy work? Why are they only interested in ensuring that the policy is abandoned or killed?In case they do not know, Nigerians are happy that this policy has hit them hard and curtailed their excesses. Nigerians are totally in support of this policy and for now the Governors can cry all they want, the policy lives and the old Naira notes are gone for good. Your plot to instigate businesses to shut down and go on strike claiming cash scarcity will fail as Nigerians have seen through all these.
The storyline that has been spun that the cash scarcity was designed to make their candidate look bad is a false narrative; these 10 Governors are behind the scarcity to force abandonment.
The ultimate plan where the policy is kept alive is to cause civil disobedience, cause riots, make the country ungovernable and intimidate the President and the CBN Governor to reverse the policy. All these so that these 10 Governors can have money to buy votes during the election. The monies are already warehoused in the old notes and asking them to return same to the banks without having assurance to such volume cash is what is paining these Nigerian Governors.Nigerians must not allow a few desperate people to stop the wheel of constitutional governance in our country.
The new Naira policy is not aimed at impoverishing the people neither is it aimed at making the people suffer more hardship. It was a beautifully thought out policy with perfect timing to checkmate the use of cash to subvert the sovereignty of the people, immediately stop counterfeiting, strengthen the Naira, checkmate ransom taking, banditry and money laundering.
These are the reasons why Nigerians support this policy.For us in the civil society, this policy has come to stay. There is no going back. This is the best time for it to be implemented, just before elections. It is a master stroke and we commend the CBN and President Muhammadu Buhari for the outstanding courage to initiate this policy.Nigerians will recall that in a press conference, leaders of 13 out of the 18 registered political parties have pledged to withdraw their participation in the elections if the policy is reversed.
The political parties field candidates, they are the ones sponsoring candidates for elections and they are the ones that should have needed cash the most rather they support the policy and have insisted that it must stand. The need for the protection of the credibility of the 2023 election cannot be over emphasized. Furthermore, Nigerians are asking, is it not these same Governors that got their state houses of Assembly to vote against Local Government autonomy that are the ones claiming love for the people and their suffering? Is it not these same Governors who would rather fly around the world in private jets and not pay workers’ salaries that are claiming to love the people?
Is it not the same Governors that mismanaged the bailout funds given to them by the same President Buhari and CBN Governor that are now mouthing love for the people? Is it not these same Governors who have failed to conduct Local Government elections so as to bring government closer to the people that are now saying they love the people and feel for them? Have they reduced the tuition fees in their stated owned universities? Have they disbanded the killer militia operating in their states if they claim they love the people? Today, they are the same Governors issuing contrary directives with those of the President.
Just some few months ago these governors were publicly worshipping the President and eulogizing him, but because they view that the tenure is ending they have abandoned him, they now speak ill of them and they say the President is anti-people. Again, I say to them, President Muhammadu Buhari enjoys the mandate of the people until 29th May, 2023.If these Governors so much love the people, why are they stifling the political space and charging their opponents with trumped up charges? In Ebonyi, opponents are in prison.
In Zamfara, opponents are hounded out of the state. In Kaduna, buildings and property of opponents are demolished. In Imo, opponents are being attacked and charged to court for very flimsy and unsubstantiated claims, in Rivers political opponents cannot as much as campaign because they have a supreme emperor as Governor. Same for Kogi and Lagos. How then can these Governors claim their action is motivated by love for their people.
It is on this note that we call on every CSO in Nigeria to pull out of any and every protest against the CBN or the new class policy. We disassociate the Nigerian Civil society community from the planned destructive protests. We speak as the highest organ of the Nigerian civil society community and we speak because we have the mandate to so speak.
Any person who personally attends a protest knowing that the plan is to cause destruction to public infrastructure or buildings housing banks or their infrastructure cannot lay claim to being a member of any of the credible civil society organizations in Nigeria and deserving of our help when the law comes calling.It is on this note that we call on the Supreme Court of Nigeria, tomorrow is the expiry date of the Exparte order. As you sit on the matter, do substantial justice in line with what Nigerian people desire. Do not be the wheel on which vote buyers will ride to compromise our elections.
They have come not for the people of Nigeria but for themselves. Over these past days of the subsistence of the order, they have further realized that the only purpose of their approach to the Supreme Court is to cause mischief and attempt to use the apex Court to keep the old currency alive so that on election day, their warehouses will be opened and the sovereign will of the people compromised.
These Governors who ran to the Supreme Court know that joining the CBN will further rob the Court of its original jurisdiction in hearing the matter. Now without hearing the CBN, how can the Court appropriately determine the appropriate status of even the old Naira notes? Could there be an order of court to continue to use the old notes if the entire old notes collected by the CBN have been destroyed? Could the Court appropriately determine whether volume of Naira pumped into the system by the CBN for each of the states before it is enough if it cannot hear the CBN? Nigerians do not want the mischief of these Governors.My Lords, refer them to the Federal High Court that has exclusive jurisdiction to determine currency matters as provided in Section 251 of our Constitution.
Indeed it is true that the Supreme Court is not a father Christmas. So these Governors who approached the Supreme Court for gift to have access to election rigging money should not be gifted such access. Nigeria is just 11 days away from a historic election and every effort has been put in by all authorities to ensure it is credible, that is what these Governors do not want.
The Supreme Court is a Constitutional court. It is a court of policy and direction. It is not a court where groups come to flex political muscles or exhibit political abracadabra. It is a place where decency reigns.
We have implicit respect for the justices of the Supreme Court we trust in their wisdom.Dear Nigerians, how many of these Governors in the Supreme Court utilized the bailout funds they collected to pay salaries of their state’s workers?
These Governors claim they love the masses, they asked for bailout and were given. What did they do with the money? Some of them bought houses in Abuja, Lagos, Uk, US, UAE and all over the world.The CBN and the EFCC had jointly recovered bout N20 Billion from the Kogi State Government.
Just last week, the wife of the same Kogi State Governor and his cousin were charged, and quoting from the EFCC statement “on an 18 count charge bordering on criminal misappropriation and money laundering to the tune of N3, 081,804,654:00”. If the Governor loves the people of Kogi as he claims, let him ask her to stop running and go and answer to the charges. Anyway, she will not run for long before the law will catch up with her.
The Governor is obviously not charged alongside because he enjoys immunity because it was obviously through him that his family members laid their hands on Kogi peoples’ money.
These are the types of people in the Supreme Court asking for the old currency to continue in circulation.They never set out to work for the people but to attempt to cement their positions at the table of their new master.
They believe that if the old notes continue to circulate, they can buy their way to power for their new master. In the Nigeria of today, if there is a group that lacks the moral right to speak on this currency matters, it is these Governors. In fact we urge them to take a seat at the rear because they got us here and Nigerians have taken so much from them.
Nigerians and posterity will not forgive anyone who plays any role in compromising the 2023 election because we have suffered enough and do not wish to be provoked further.They have totally collapsed intra party primaries in the states and always producing their choice candidates because of the financial influence they wield using state resources.
They have collapsed the Local Government system so they have access to slush funds.We therefore call on Mr. President and the heads of all our security agencies to keep an eye on the activities in the various state government houses and the banking halls.
Anyone caught sabotaging the system should be made to face the full wrath of the law.We further call on Governors Nair El-Rufai, Bello Matawalle, Hope Uzodimma, Abdullahi Ganduje, Yahaya Bello, Rotimi Akeredolu, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Nyesom Wike, Douye Diri and Biodun Oyebanji, to please show Mr. President some respect. Halt the incitement of the public against the President.
You all have benefited from the generosity of this President. He has allowed all of you the freehand to run your states. Today you battle him because a legacy policy he has put in place to benefit the people seems like it will expose most of your failures before the people on election day and you are inciting the public against him.This new policy will cleanse the Nigerian financial system. It will ensure movement of money leaves trail and will discourage illicit activities and sponsorship of insecurity.
It will also bring about credible election. This is the same man you despise today and vow to confront directly. The attitude of not accepting opposing views in your states should not be brought to Abuja. We wish to state that as the apex body of the civil society in Nigeria, the entire civil society in Nigeria supports this policy, we support the President and the CBN Governor for full implementation of the policy and we will deny support to all opponents of the policy. We also have confidence in the effort of the President and the CBN Governor to ameliorate the genuine suffering and hardship of the people occasioned by the sabotage the system is facing.
The CBN should closely monitor the banks and their disbursement of their allocations of cash. POS operators in line with the resolutions at their last meeting with the CBN should not lend themselves to greedy politicians to sabotage the system. Petrol stations, please accept POS payments from customers, do not insist on cash. Everyone playing their little roles correctly will solve these problems in a little while.In a few days Nigeria goes into general elections.
The credibility of the election will be questioned if politicians have access to illicit cash with which to compromise the system. We urge those insisting on transacting on the old notes to have one eye on the good of the people and do what is right.
All genuinely held monies by Nigerians have been deposited in the banks. Anyone having the old notes are those who hold them in anticipation that the policy will fail and they can revert to whatever illicit purpose they held the money. But the policy will not fail and Nigeria will be better for it.
