The Chairman of the House of Representatives ad-hoc Committee on Naira Re-design, Cashless Policy and Currency Swap, on Thursday, said going into elections without “hard cash” could put politicians at a disadvantage.
He said this while fielding questions from State House reporters after leading his committee to a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Doguwa said each member of the House of Representatives is entitled to N70 million cash to pay polling agents and for other election running costs, stating that if they have no hard cash, they will be disadvantaged in the exercise.
He said his committee would not rest until it had seen that the pains of the new monetary policy on Nigerians were fully assuaged.
Doguwa, while commending the President for the intervention via the national broadcast, by directing the reintroduction of the old N200 notes for six more weeks, said the committee would be forced to invoke its constitutional oversight privilege should the executive authorities vested with the responsibility of carrying out the President’s instruction fail.
He said his committee was mandated by the House and by extension, the National Assembly, to interface with the president and the CBN on the implementation of the policy.
He said even though most of what they wanted to discuss with the president had been taken care of by his broadcast, especially the extension of the validity of the old N200 notes, there was the need to do more to ensure that his directive to the apex bank to make the money available, was carried out immediately
“A presidential candidate is expected to have at least N1 billion by law. The law has provided for us the amount of money we need to oversee our election process. You need to pay your agents in the villages where you don’t have ATM machines, in the villages where you don’t have POS, in the villages where absolutely you don’t have this new naira. So, this is money that I require, that the law has permitted me to have N70 million as logistics. I need to have this N70 million in hard copy.
“As I speak to you, I don’t have it. Which means if this policy continues this way, if the central bank fails to make available this money, we need to fund our elections, definitely, every candidate no matter what party he belongs to, will be put at disadvantage. And don’t forget the point I’ve made as a partisan member, that the policy in itself is a policy that is apparently against the ruling APC because Nigerians that are not happy will look at it as a policy of government of APC. This has placed us at a disadvantage already.
“Of course, it’s a good observation. Those of us fight at the ATM stations, ATM stations is now a wrestling grounds. Banks are being burnt up, are you telling me that all those people that are burning banks are APC members? APC members are law abiding members of our party.”
