- By Halimah Olamide
Governor of Kaduna State Nasir el-Rufai accused the Central Bank of Nigeria of confiscating money belonging to Nigerians.
He said while president Muhammadu Buhari approved redesign of the Naira, the CBN only came up with re-colouring.
In a series of tweets on his verified Twitter page on Sunday the Kaduna Governor said rather allow Nigerians who deposited their money to have their money back, the CBN collected and refused to allow them access to their funds.
In what he called the ABC of Currency Redesign, el-Rufai said while Currency redesign was approved by the President and announced, “Currency recoloring resulted.”
He said Currency swap was envisaged by section 20(3) of the Central Bank of Nigeria Act 2007 as approved by the President.
“Swap means I take N100,000 to the bank in old notes and I receive N100,000 immediately in new notes. No more, no less.” he stated
Alleging that during implementation of the cash swap, “the CBN withdrew over N2 trillion from circulation but printed only N400 billion” he said the effect is that“Currency confiscation was then unilaterally and unlawfully implemented by the CBN.”
el-Rufai said Trade and exchange have collapsed. Human suffering, impoverishment and economic contraction resulted.
He stated, “The policy objective was derailed into a deliberate national fiasco to sabotage the elections in the name of preventing vote-buying. All efforts to get CBN to implement what was lawfully approved failed.
“ Some State Governments had no choice but to approach the Supreme Court for adjudication. The APC as a party and the Progressive Governors Forum are unanimous that policy implementation must be reviewed,”
He said the only solution now is Full compliance of the subsisting ruling of the Supreme Court until final judgment on the suit instituted by the State Governments.
NPO Reports that that Kaduna was one of the green first states that dragged the Federal Government to court over the New Naira policy.