Naira swap policy: Atiku, PDP working with saboteurs against Nigerians – Tinubu 

Presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has accused his opponent in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Atiku Abubakar of working with saboteurs on the current scarcity of new naira notes and fuel scarcity.

A statement released Friday in Abuja by Tinubu’s Presidential Campaign Council said Anyone who lives in Nigeria and not Dubai and visits banks and ATM locations will feel sad that the CBN is making Nigerians to suffer for its Naira swap policy. 

The statement signed by the PCC Director, Media and Publicity, Bayo Onanuga, said the current sabotage of the Naira notes swap and fuel scarcity that have caused untold hardship to millions of Nigerians across the country revealed the true character of PDP presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar “as public enemy number one.

“Nigerians will recall that since the Central Bank introduced its current cash-limit and new Naira notes swap policies, Atiku Abubakar and PDP maintained opportunistic silence with the hope they will benefit from the discomfort the policies will create for Nigerians and the resentment they will generate for the ruling APC.

“While Atiku and PDP were in bed with the saboteurs and fifth columnists among the operators of Money Deposit Banks and oil marketers who created the current logjam to force the outcome of the February 25 Presidential election in favour of the former Vice President, our candidate Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu  courageously pitched his tent with the poor masses who have been most negatively impacted by the antics of these evil doers.

“Having realised they have lost the initiative and their antics exposed to Nigerians by Asiwaju Tinubu at the APC Presidential Campaign rally in Abeokuta, Atiku made a half-hearted appeal to CBN to ‘slightly’ extend the deadline for the currency swap. 

“We are currently at a loss to understand what informed the current call of Atiku on CBN not to extend the February 10 deadline despite the unmitigated  hardship still being faced by many Nigerians who could not meet their basic daily needs as a result of lack of cash from banks and the empty ATM machines.”

The ruling party described as “fire brigade” the bank’s latest approach in approving payment of N20,000 at the counter, adding that such move is “far from offering relief as queues are still long, agony and frustrations widening, an invitation to riots.

“This poorly implemented policy has turned Nigerians to destitutes because they cannot access their own money in their bank accounts. People cannot get money to give their kids to school or pay for daily needs at corner shops, fruit shops,  including buying newspapers. Transactions in market places have plummeted.

“The CBN governor gave insight into the nature of the problem when he revealed in Daura last Sunday that out of the N3.3 trillion in circulation, only N500 billion is in the bank vaults. So far only N1.9trillion had been received by the banks for swap.

“But people are not getting the new notes to spend, thus triggering the huge anger in the land against Emefiele.

“We thus find it ludicrous that a man who joined the call for an extension of the deadline last week is championing a new campaign against further extension because he feels the suffering of Nigerians will serve his own political end to become president at all cost.”

The Tinubu/Shettima campaign team, however, said it is clear to every Nigerian of conscience that Atiku Abubakar and PDP do not mean well for the country. 

“PDP and Atiku have become desperadoes who will wish calamity on the country as long as it makes them win an election they are destined to lose, spectacularly. 

“Atiku is now public enemy number one in Nigeria. He is evil personified and must be rejected at the polls on 25 February.

“If Atiku Abubakar has the  poor people of our country at heart like Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the PDP candidate will not be advocating for adherence to a policy that has become a burden too heavy to bear for our people.”