In October 2022, acting on credible intelligence that there was a huge
amount of money outside the banking sector being kept by politicians,
bandits, money launderers and other criminals that was distorting the
monetary policy of the apex bank, the CBN announced that it was going to
re-design the Naira and withdraw the old notes from circulation while giving
a deadline of January 31st for the use of the old notes as legal tender.

As expected, most Nigerians complied and the CBN was able to mop up
over two trillion Naira of the old notes from circulation within the stipulated
time while giving very stringent conditions for those who wished to deposit large sums of money based on the provisions of the money laundering Act.

However, as it’s typical of everything under the current administration, the CBN bungled the exercise by not making enough new notes available to the public while some bankers also connived with unscrupulous politicians’
to corner large quantities of the new notes for themselves. As a result of
this, there became a huge shortage of Naira notes in the system with the
banks not being able to make the new notes available to the public and this
resulted in a lot of distortions to daily economic transactions especially
amongst the masses.

The whole drama took a new turn when some APC governors who had never shown concern for the plight of the masses despite all the economic
downturn of the last eight years and the untold hardship the Buhari
administration had subjected Nigerians to, suddenly started mounting
pressure on President Mohammadu Buhari and the CBN governor to extend the deadline for accepting the old notes as legal tender.

Prior to this, they had tried to get the CBN governor arrested by the DSS on trumped up charges of financing terrorism. When all their antics of
blackmailing the CBN governor did not work and Buhari refused to budge, in their desperation they did the most unbelievable thing and took their own
party’s government to court where they procured an interim injunction on
the extended use of the old Naira notes.

The thing to note here is that what they got was an “interim” injunction
which lapses after seven days and not a perpetual injunction which is
indefinite. Given this scenario, at the expiration of the interim injunction
which they procured, President Mohammadu Buhari gave presidential
backing to the CBN policy in a national broadcast and maintained the old N500 and N1,000 note had ceased to be legal tender while giving an
extension for the use of the old N200 by two months.

Many Nigerians had suspected that there was an ulterior motive for the
governors being so aggressive against the Naira re-design policy but the
reason became public knowledge when Buba Galadinma a former chieftain of the APC went on air to reveal that some APC governors in the north had
amassed over N22 billion in the old notes for the purpose of vote buying in the forthcoming elections. Inside sources also revealed that their southern
counterparts had accumulated even more cash for the same purpose while their presidential candidate is known for his deployment of bullion vans to
distort the electoral process.

The real irony in all this is that it was this same APC governors that
mopped up billions of Naira in new notes released by the CBN to the
commercial banks thus worsening the Naira crisis in their desperate bid to amass cash for the purpose of votes buying.

As Nigerians we must rise up against the evil agenda of the APC governors
because if they are allowed to get away and implement this electoral heist,
no elected official will ever work to improve the lot of the people again, all they will do once they get into office is to amass enough wealth buy their way through in subsequent elections at the expense of the masses.

While the CBN is being encouraged to hasten the minting and distribution of the new notes to ease pains of the masses, let us as Nigerians ensure that we don’t fall for the antics of the same people that looted the funds meant for our welfare, hoarded it for the purpose vote buying while denying
the average Nigerian of cash needed for their daily expenses and causing us untold hardship in the process. Our lives as Nigerians will only begin to
get better when we make our leaders accountable to us. Say no to vote buying.

Kunle Oshobi writes from Lagos.