A re-joinder on people defending Emefiele
As a Financial expert, I make bold to say that Cashless policy is a function of lifestyle. You don’t put a peg on cash limit when you don’t give out the new Naira notes.
Why do you want people to stop spending the old naira notes when new ones are not made available?
I hereby state unequivocally that when you politicise monetary policy and subject the aftermath effects to different judicial interpretations, you are definitely pushing the country to a state of precipe.
So, Emefiele has no business in formulating monetary policy that is politically motivated. I can not sit down here and rationalise the policy that improverished my people.
It’s laughable when people that know next to nothing say Emefiele’s naira redesign will curb vote buying!
The CBN has no business in denying Politicians money to buy vote, I have been around Nigeria political mileu to know that vote buying at polling units is the least problem of Nigeria politicians.
Contrary to this, major votes are gotten by Politicians via Vote Influencers.
These are VIPs- (Captain of industries, Religious Bodies, Corporate organisations, Labour and Opinion Leaders) that were given contracts, tax reliefs/ holidays, import waivers and the likes days before the election.
The N3,N5…dishing out at polling booths by all party agents is just a tip of the iceberg. And I think our security agents should be made to step up their responsibility in this regards.
The Social disorder that we are currently experiencing now is what Tinubu forsaw and made him to make the Abeokuta declarations.
He knows quite well as an astute and experienced Politician that nobody will want to vote for a government that brings pains to the people by default… And of a fact, creating social unrest is the best way to vote buying… he knows opposition will catch on the resultants crisis to sway votes @ the expense of the ruling Party.
I think some people misconstrued Tinubu about his opinion on this Naira re-dying. Anyways, let’s leave the messenger out of the message and concentrate on the later… Or didn’t we feel the negative effect of the not well thought policy as well…?
It’s a good policy, badly timed and poorly implemented. It has no economic relevance.
Since 2010, people like us are privileged to have worked with data that shows Nigeria has been fully cashless!! Out of the N57 trillion money deposits, only N3.5trillion is not within the banking institutions and this amount is mainly in the informal sector.
The big boys that run the economy don’t need cash to do business. We need to break this myth around our psyche that it’s the paltry N3.5 trillion that is mostly in the informal sector is what the Politicians will use to buy votes….this is Crass ignorance!
The hullabaloo was created to justify the mischief behind Emefiele’s inordinate action.
Statistically, I need to burst the bubble of Nigerians, UK with a population of 70million has 4.5billion of her total money outside the banking institutions, USA with a population of 300million has $2.3trillion of her money in circulation, yet their Cash to GDP ratio is 7.5 & 10 per cent respectively while Nigeria Cash to GDP ratio as at today still stands at a paltry 1.8 per cent, meaning Nigeria is still much cashless than these two advanced economies.
This is despite the fact that it’s only 24 per cent of Nigerians that have Bank accounts while only 9 per cent out of this 24 per cent are using online banking platforms.
Beyond Politics, I will implore you my honourable readers to stick to facts and figures when matters that bother on the existential existence of Nigeria is called into questioning.
Asiwaju and people like us (the Progressives) saw through the foul play emanating from Emefiele and his gang or how do you rationalize the reason why only N300billion new notes were printed at the first instance in a country that has N3.7trillion outside the banking institutions? Your guess is as good as mine…
All his shenanigans is to heat up the polity and demarket the ruling Party. We won’t fall to such cheap charade.
Tunde Rotimi-Accountant and Political Researcher writes from FCT-ABUJA.
