By Vincent Akanmode
The emergency meeting of the Council of State held at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa, Abuja, yesterday was no doubt a timely intervention in a crisis that has shaken the nation to its foundation in the last two weeks.
Briefing journalists on the outcome of the meeting after long hours of deliberations, the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, accompanied by the governors of Lagos and Taraba States, Babajide Sanwo-Olu and Darius Ishaku, as well as presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, said the statesmen all agreed that the naira redesigning policy was well-intentioned.
They were, however, apprehensive about the haste with which it was being implemented as to inconvenience the populace who are now finding it difficult to access both old and new naira notes.
The essence of any government policy should be to make life better for the citizens. But the discomfort the new policy has foisted on the nation has led many to ask if the wellbeing of the people was given any consideration before the expiry date set for the old notes, after the announcement was made by CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, on October 26.
Even in less populous countries, a period in upwards of a year or two is given for old and new notes to co-exist until the former goes out of circulation. Unfortunately, we now have a situation in which trillions of the old notes have been mopped up by the CBN while new notes in circulation is believed to be something in the neighbourhood of a paltry N300 billion.
The outgoing week has been a hectic one for many officials of commercial banks whose premises were invaded by frustrated and angry customers who for days had tried in vain to withdraw money from empty automated teller machines. The situation led to attacks on bank officials who had to scale the perimeter fence of their premises to avoid being lynched.
The prevailing situation has led many to question the capacity of our mint to cope with the volume of naira notes needed to meet demand and the consequent buck-passing between the apex bank and the commercial banks which are supposed to serve as outlets for dispensation of the new naira notes. The CBN has accused the banks of hoarding the naira notes in their care while the latter say it would be foolish of them to sabotage a process in which they themselves had invested billions of naira.
The real problem was apparently one of lack of capacity at the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Plc (The Mint) as Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele, reportedly admitted before the Council. Orders placed with a German firm and De La Rue of UK for paper for printing N500 and N1,000 notes are yet to be met.
It was probably in consideration of the foregoing that the Council of State proposed a realistic solution that could also save the blushes of the Federal Government which had already been told via the Supreme Court ruling in the case brought before it by the governments of Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara States that the February 10, 2023 set as the new expiry date for the old naira notes cannot be sacrosanct.
The Council of State, in its wisdom, advised the Federal Government to ensure the CBN supplied enough new naira notes to meet the demand of the populace or re-circulate the old ones already mopped up to end the people’s suffering.
If the Federal Government had a problem determining how to back out of its initial grandstanding against the ruling of the apex court that the old notes should be kept in circulation beyond February 10, 2023, the Council of State has provided it aface-savingway on a platter.