Senator Shehu Sani has decried the current hardship being faced in the country over the naira redesign.
The senator in a statement he issued Friday in Kaduna said the redesigning of the National currency and the cash withdrawal policy introduced by Godwin Emefiele, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), is an economic disaster and a poisonous idea aimed at unleashing hardship on the masses.
He said, “The CBN has become a political institution and a home for serpentine and delirious economic ideas. Nigeria is a developing country our economic experiments must take cognisance of the economic status of our people.
“If the Buhari administration really wants to target the few corrupt, it doesn’t have to wait this long and it doesn’t have to impoverished punish the poor. Emefiele set a forest on fire in the name of catching a few rats.
“The CBN under Emefiele has become a shrine for misery and a breeding ground for penury. It has become a republic within a republic. Why didn’t the Buhari administration introduce the change of currency in 2019 and wait until 2023 if the CBN policy is about curbing vote buying?”
While describing Nigeria as ‘a vast refugee camp where people queue for cash ration’, he said, “Nigerians have been subjected to the multiple tragedies of struggling for money, searching for money, looking for money and scratching for money.”
He recalled that Nigerians used to buy Dollars at the black market, now they are also buying Naira at the black market.
He then accused the Ahmed Lawan led Senate of failing to checkmate the excesses of the CBN ‘because the leadership is in bed with it’ saying, “The House of Reps have a clear and principled position on the matter.”