‘One Governor Collected N500 Million Worth of New Notes’ – El Rufai

The Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai on Thursday claimed that a governor in Nigeria withdrew N500 million worth of new naira notes from a bank.
El-Rufai stated this during an interview with BBC Hausa.

According to the Kaduna State Governor, politicians who are targets of the naira redesign policy already have their way.

The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele had claimed that the policy was targeted at curbing voting buying ahead of the 2023 general elections.

Emefiele further stated the naira redesign policy will also curb terrorism and kidnapping in the country.

said, “It is not wrong to change currencies, every country does but you can not change it at this season of elections and given this limited time, where in this world has that ever happened?”

“Politicians and big businessmen who are targeted by the policy have their ways of accessing the new notes, some of them own the banks, but what of poor, petty traders?

“All APC governors met on the issue, we saw how people suffer, we support the change of currency but time should be extended to months.

“We said let CBN, banks managers and we governors sat and discussed the issue, let’s work together and have a proper plan on how to go about it, we should have plans to follow people to their homes, villages and change the notes for them but not forcing them to go to banks which take some of them a hundred kilometres.

“All APC governors met on the issue, we saw how people suffer, we support the change of currency but time should be extended to months.

“We said let CBN, banks managers and we governors sat and discussed the issue, let’s work together and have a proper plan on how to go about it, we should have plans to follow people to their homes, villages and change the notes for them but not forcing them to go to banks which take some of them a hundred kilometres.

“I tell you this change does not affect politicians, they have their money and they are prepared, they know how to access the new notes, it is poor don’t have ways, even yesterday we were told one of the governors was given 500 millions of the new notes.”