Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo state has said that the proposed plan by the Central Bank of Nigeria to redesign naira notes is political and a ploy by the All Progressives Congress-led government to sway voters ahead of the 2023 general elections.
Obaseki said this while inaugurating the Edo State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Women Campaign Council at the Presidential Campaign Secretariat in Benin City, the Edo State capital, on Wednesday, November 2.
He stressed that there are other urgent things the country needs to pay attention to. Obaseki said;
“They say we should all bring our naira and give it to them because they want to change it for us. Is that our priority now? How does changing of currency reduce the price of food in the market? They say they want to change our currency and dollars are going higher every day. We can’t even see dollars again.
“I am an economist and I can tell you categorically that this policy by the CBN and Federal Government has no basis in economics. There is no reason to do this; this is purely political.
“The urgency for us is how to get food for our citizens to remove starvation and hunger from the land. The urgency is on how to maintain discipline in our monetary policy so that we can manage our foreign exchange rate because we are import-dependent.”
Obaseki also said that the country will continue to fail if the All Progressives Congress (APC) wins next year’s election.
He added;
“We can’t allow those managing our country (APC) to continue because if we allow the APC government to continue, the country will fail as the country is already failing.
“God sees how people are suffering in this country and will not allow them to manage Nigeria again.
“This 2023 election is about the continuous existence of Nigeria. If we don’t change the current leadership, I don’t know what will happen to this country. For us the PDP, we are the real only organic party. We are the only ones prepared for a free and fair election and our candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, is the most experienced.”