Naira Notes: Poverty artificially imported to Nigeria – APC chieftain, Shinkafi

Attahiru Ahmed – Gusau

A chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC) in Zamfara state and former National secretary of APGA Dr Sani Abdullahi Shinkafi has raised the alarm that Nigerians are in abject poverty, says Poverty was artificially imported into the country.

Dr Shinkafi who was addressing newsmen on sunday at his Gusau resident lamented that the New Naira notes policy has seriously affected many Nigerians who he said have been languishing in object poverty since the introduction of the cashless policy.

According to Shinkafi, President Muhammadu Buhari was ill-advised by the CBN Governor Mr. Emeifele stressing that, “This is not the way how advanced countries change their currencies”.

He cited examples with United States of America, United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia where currencies used to be systematically changed without any expiration date.

“There has been change of currencies in countries like USA, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia and other advanced countries but they don’t abruptly stop old notes from circulation”.

“What they normally do is that, they allow the old notes to go with the new ones concurrently until the old ones finally returned to banks”.

He commended governors of Zamfara, Kaduna and Kogi states for their giant efforts in saving the country from total collapse as a result of cash crunch.

He advised the governors to return to court if President Buhari, AGF and CBN refused to act as ordered by the Supreme court.

Shinkafi said, “The Governors have powers to apply for enforcement of form (48) contempt of court charge and form (49) committal to prison so that all the actors who choose to disregard the decision of the Apex Court can be taken to prison outrightly”.

He called on Nigerians to continue using both the old and the new Naira notes as legal tender until December 31 as instructed by the Apex court.