With the countdown to Nigeria’s presidential election, the People’s Redemption Party (PRP) has called on the Federal Government to reverse its Naira Redesign Policy to ameliorate the hardship being experienced by Nigerians.
(The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had on 26 October, 2022 announced its intention to redesign the 200, 500 and 1,000 naira notes to tackle corruption and counterfeiting. However, since the unveiling of the notes, Nigerians across different parts of the country have been struggling to access them from banks and ATM cash points).
The party also urged the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, to resign from office.
The PRP’s National Chairman, Alhaji Falalu Bello, stated this in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, at the presentation of the party’s manifesto titled “Compact with the People.”
Bello said the withdrawal of over N2 trillion from circulation and printing of N300 billion by the CBN is the reason for the present crisis in Nigeria.
‘Any policy that denies citizens access to their money is not good and is not a good policy.
‘It (the Naira redesign policy) is a man-made crisis that is avoidable.
‘For the failure of this policy, which made and still makes Nigerians suffer, we ask that the CBN governor honourably resign, failing which the president should fire him.
‘As a registered political party in Nigeria and a juristic person, the PRP has been denied access to its credit balances in banks on supposed order of the CBN that has disallowed withdrawal beyond twenty thousand naira (N20, 000) across the counter.
‘This order, we must say, is an illegal one and we are testing the powers of both the banks and the CBN from denying us access to our credit in court and will ask for punitive damages,’ he added.
The PRP chairman, Alhaji Falalu Bello, thereafter presented a 34-page manifesto which, he said, if given a chance to rule Nigeria will bring security to the nation, make Agriculture an economically viable activity, stop the hemorrhage in the nation’s economy and grow it for the benefit of the Nigerian people rather than the Nigerian elite.
It promised to also improve the educational and human development needs of the nation and address the over 10 million out-of-school children that can not be wished away.
‘The manifesto would also make Nigeria a truly federal nation and grow the extraction industry to benefit all Nigerians. It would be pursued vigorously by all PRP government at all levels.
‘It would address the problems the country is presently passing through under the government of the All Progressives Congress,’ the manifesto further revealed.
According to the PRP’s national chairman, the party’s manifesto, a six-point agenda, will also address the infrastructural development and health of the nation.
‘It will enhance national security and revamp the oil, gas and solid minerals sector,’ he noted.
He lamented that the last eight years of the APC-led administration had witnessed continuous growth in petroleum subsidy which, according to him, the president himself had tagged as a fraud.
‘President Muhammadu Buhari should address the alleged fraud going on in the oil sector before leaving office in three months’ time.
‘The continuous wastage of the nation’s resources on Warri, Kaduna and Port Harcourt refineries upon which the government spent over N4. 15 trillion without the refineries producing must not be allowed to continue,’ stressed the PRP national chairman.
For his part, the PRP presidential candidate, Kola Abiola, said the party would be accountable to people, adding that ‘a lot of things you see in this manifesto is something we would do, if we are elected by the grace of God.
‘We are here because we want to serve the interest of the common man, mentor the next generation and also correct the wrongs in the past.
‘In the next four years, Nigerians would see a different Nigeria. We live and stand by our manifesto.’
Edited by Amaka E. Nliam
