New cashless policy will discourage rigging – Sanusi

A former Central Bank governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi said the new cashless policy by the Central Bank of Nigeria will discourage election rigging by politicians.

In a short video obtained by Daily Trust yesterday, the former CBN governor also noted that the Policy dates back to 2012 when he was the governor of the Central Bank, adding that the CBN is just continuing what he started.

He said: “The cashless policy started in 2012 when I was governor of the CBN with Lagos and later spread to 5 states. The explanation we gave that time is that the world is evolving and people shouldn’t be carrying cash around, as such the introduction of cashless policy to ease transactions

“At first people protested against it but they later accepted the policy and started using the different payment channels at restaurants, shops and other places,”

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Speaking further, he noted that one of the fundamental importance of the cashless policy is that it will discourage rigging, while cautioning Nigerians to ignore politicians who are complaining about the policy.

“I want to advise people to be careful with what politicians are saying about the cashless policy because it does not favour them. They spend four years without delivering on their mandates and later return with huge sums of money thinking they can bribe the security agencies and the electoral body.

“What the policy entails now is that a politician who wants to bribe the security agencies or the electoral body, he/she must pay it in the persons’ bank account where the transaction can be traced. Therefore I urge people to embrace the policy as part of efforts to entrench democracy and also make rigging difficult for politicians,” he added.