The majority leader of the House of Representatives, Alhassan Doguwa, says the chairman of the Central Bank of Nigeria must appear before the legislators on Tuesday or risk being arrested.
Doguwa stated this while condemning the 10-day extension of the phasing out of the new naira note by the apex bank chairman.
Doguwa said, “The 10-day extension for the exchange of the old naira notes is not the solution. We as a legislative committee with a constitutional mandate of the House would only accept clear compliance with section 20 sub-section 3, 4, and 5 of the CBN Act and nothing more.
“Nigeria as a developing economy and a nascent democracy must respect the principle of the rule of law. And the House would go ahead to sign an arrest warrant to compel the CBN Governor to appear before the Ad hoc committee.”
According to him, under his chairmanship, the committee would continue its work until it gets the demands of Nigerians addressed in accordance with the laws of the land.
While describing the extension as a mere political gimmick to further deceive Nigerians and worsen their economic and social livelihood, Doguwa said the CBN governor must appear before or stand the risk of being arrested on the strength of legislative writs signed by the Speaker on Monday.
He also said the policy was capable of frustrating the forthcoming general elections.
“Security agencies and their operations especially at the state level are generally funded through cash advances and direct table payments of allowances to operatives during elections,” he said.
OduNews reports that Emefiele announced the extension on Sunday following widespread criticisms by Nigerians.
Announcing the deadline, the CBN boss said that the currency redesign programme was necessary to enable more efficient monetary policy decisions alongside curtailing banditry and ransom-taking.
Emefiele said that for 19 years, the CBN hadn’t re-design the naira, whereas, he said, this should normally have been done within a five to eight years window.
Enumerating the merits and benefits of the re-design, Emefiele said, “Our aim is mainly to make our Monetary Policy Decisions more efficacious and like you can see; we’ve started to see inflation trending downwards and exchange rates relatively stable.
‘’Secondly, we aim to support the efforts of our Security agencies in combating banditry and ransom-taking in Nigeria through this program and we can see that the military is making good progress in this important task in Nigeria.”
He noted that out of the N3.23tn currency in circulation and N2.7tn currency in people’s homes, the apex bank has retrieved N1.9tn with N900bn yet to be collected from those hoarding the notes.
In his words, “Ladies and Gentlemen, available data at the Central Bank of Nigeria has shown that in 2015, Currency -in circulation was only N1.4tn. As of October 2022, currency in circulation had risen to N3.23tn; out of which only N500bn was within the banking industry and N2.7tn was held permanently in people’s homes.
“Ordinarily, when CBN releases currency into circulation, it is meant to be used and after effluxion of time, it returns to the CBN thereby keeping the volume of currency in circulation under the firm control of the CBN.’’
“So far and since the commencement of this program, we have collected about N1.9tn; leaving us with about N900bn the CBN governor said.
He said that the president approved a “10-day extension of the deadline from January 31, 2023, to February 10, 2023; to allow for the collection of more old notes legitimately held by Nigerians and achieve more success in cash swap in our rural communities after which all old notes outside the CBN losses their legal tender status.
‘’Our CBN staff currently on mass mobilization and monitoring together with officials of the EFCC and ICPC will work together to achieve these objectives.”
He added that there will be a seven-day grace period after the new deadline.
Before the announcement, the CBN had insisted on the January 31st deadline despite pressure from the National Assembly, politicians, banks, customers, and key stakeholders.
