Clash of the Titans over new naira policy

By Our Correspondent

The National Council of State meeting which held at the Aso Rock Presidential Village last week came amid high expectations from the citizenry. Not a few Nigerians believed that the August body would knock the presidency and order it to open the vault of the Central Bank of Nigeria [CBN] and cause a deluge of the scarce new naira notes of 1,000, 500 and 200 denominations across the country.

Nigerians had been generally frustrated by the new CBN policy which aims to achieve a cashless society due to their inability to access the new notes for any transactions. Aside from the timing and the seeming poor implementation, however, analysts have unanimously agreed that the policy which seeks to reduce excess cash in circulation is desirable. But if the pain caused the populace is weighed against the expected merits of the policy, the verdict is likely to be different, if not entirely harsh.

Constitutionally, the council is the highest advisory body to the federal government which ought to meet once in every quarter subject to the desire of the president, especially when contentious matters of state policy or governance are at stake. But it has become a tradition that the council would meet and be briefed before every general elections as has been seen in the past. Accordingly, it can be suggested that last Friday meeting of the body was essentially to take briefings from relevant government institutions on their preparedness for the all-important fast approaching general elections scheduled for February 25 and March 11. But, with the crisis and confusion in the polity over the unavailability of the new currency notes, it was practically impossible for the matter not to be brought to the table of the council.

Before the council meeting, however, governors elected on the platform of the All Progressives

Congress [APC] had an audience with President Muhammadu Buhari to seek his intervention in order to douse the rising tension over the scarcity of the redesigned naira notes. The governors led to the meeting by Chairman of Progressive Governors Forum, Atiku Bagudu who is also the governor of Kebbi State, didn’t get a prompt response contrary to their expectation. The presidency after Buhari’s meeting with the governors issued a statement to the effect that a major decision on the subject matter would be taken in a week.

That one week passed, culminating in the Council of State meeting and there was seemingly no deal as the president didn’t say a word. Many have attributed the president’s silence to the action of the governors of Kaduna, Nasir el Rufai, his Zamfara and Kogi States counterpart, Bello Matawale and

Yahaya Bello respectively who had challenged the federal government’s policy and obtained a restraining order to thwart it.

The Council of State meeting ended without a clear direction on the way forward for the anxious populace. The body simply gave its backing to the CBN policy and advised that efforts should be made to make the scarce naira notes more available. A communique read at the end of the meeting by the Attorney General of the Federation and minister of Health, Abubakar Malami said: ‘relating to the naira redesign policy, the policy stands but then the council agrees that there is need for aggressive action on the part of the CBN as it relates to the implementation of the policy by way of ensuring adequate provision being made with particular regard to the supply of the naira in the system.’ Malami who had filed a counter case against the Supreme Court order on the new naira policy quickly washed his hands off when newsmen sought to know the council’s stand on the order by the apex court, saying that the issue was already before the court for determination.

Before Malami read out the resolutions, Governor Dairus Ishaku of Taraba State and his Lagos State counterpart Babajide Sanwoolu, had spoken on the presentations by the CBN and INEC bosses as well as the IGP to the council, stating that suggestions made by council consequently were advisory.

The same palpable anxiety that had gripped Nigerian ahead of the Council of State meeting was the mood of citizens last on Wednesday, February 15 when the Supreme was supposed to open hearing into the matter. The expectation was that having