Sultan warns Buhari, ‘people are hungry – is there money?’
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Nigerians may revolt against the ruling class soon if the tension aroused by fuel and naira shortage countrywide is not satisfactorily addressed by Muhammadu Buhari, the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar, has warned the President.
He reiterated new naira scarcity is worsened by the refusal of banks to accept the deposit of old notes on the order of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
“Let’s keep politics aside. The issues of development, especially for the common man, [should be prioritised],” Abubakar said at a conference on livestock organised in Abuja by the Kano government.
“These people that God Almighty gave leadership over, one day, God forbid, will rise [against us].
“After all the English [spoken] by professors [at the conference], how do we get these developments down to the common man who is a farmer, the common Fulani man who doesn’t know anything about development? He only cares about cattle.
“The people are hungry – is there money? People are angry and hungry. Let’s see how we can douse the tension.”
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Ikpeazu warns of anarchy over cash crunch
Abia Governor Okezie Ikpeazu has also warned the cash crunch may lead to anarchy if not quickly addressed, per Vanguard.
To minimise the impact on Abians, he has barred the state Board of Internal Revenue Service from collecting 2023 revenue from all markets until June.
Ikpeazu, who spoke through Trade and Investment Commissioner John Kalu, said he is “deeply worried” by the crisis.
“The governor has visited many markets in the state since the cashless policy came into effect along with the scarcity of new currency notes as a result of the naira redesign,” Kalu stressed.
“He observed that traders in the state are possibly the worst hit. Many of our traders are unable to transact with buyers as the policy implementers failed to capture their peculiar needs while rolling out the new policies.
“The traders are bearing the brunt, and as a responsible government, we are looking at various options to support them.
“One of those options is what the governor announced this afternoon [Monday] during his visit to Good Morning Market, Aba, that, henceforth, state and LGA revenue collections in the markets will be suspended for at least six months starting from January 2023.”
Kalu urged banks to immediately deploy sufficient Point of Sale (poS) machines to all markets, superstores, and other trading centres to enable buyers use their ATM cards for transactions.
He also asled the CBN to supply more new naira notes to avoid a breach of the peace caused by the “massive suffering occasioned by the new transaction regimes.
“We are not against the new cashless regime and redesigning of the naira notes by the federal government.
“But the governor is deeply worried about the effect on our hardworking traders as a result of the poor implementation strategy which failed to take into cognisance the peculiar needs of rural and urban traders.
“Many rural traders are unbanked, and even if they wish to join the banking system, the branches are not even there, hence, they might have to travel several kilometres to neighbouring communities before they can carry out their transactions.
“Quite a number of them may also not have enough formal education to help them operate the PoS machines, so the policymakers should have made provisions for their needs before rolling out.”
“The immediate solution is to inject enough new naira notes into our rural economy through special interventions by the CBN to avert the looming socio-economic dislocation that might lead to anarchy.”