Review naira redesign policy to ease hardship on Nigerians, Catholic Bishop tells FG

Lucius Ugorji, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), has asked the federal government to review the naira redesign policy to ease the hardships on Nigerians.

In October 2022, Godwin Emefiele, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), announced the plan to redesign the N200, N500, and N1,000 notes, and asked Nigerians to deposit their old notes before January 31 when they would cease to be legal tender.

Although Emefiele had said the CBN would continue to accept old naira notes after an extended deadline of February 10, the new naira notes are still scarce. 

TheCable had reported how violent protests broke out in different parts of the country as citizens have found it difficult to obtain the new naira notes.

As a measure to ease the hardship, the supreme court temporarily stopped the federal government from banning the use of the old naira notes from February 10.

Speaking on Sunday at the opening of the 2023 first plenary of CBCN in Abuja, Ugorji asked the federal government to implement a full review of the new cash policy.

The Catholic priest said the policy if not reviewed, would restrict citizens from fully participating in democracy.

He advised politicians to focus on marketing their manifestoes instead of engaging in violence and buying votes in the forthcoming elections.

The cleric urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to oversee the elections fairly as the polls “could be a turning point in history” if conducted well.

“The elections, if well conducted, can be a turning point in our political and economic history,” Ugorji said.

“We, therefore, urge all to play their roles maturely and creditably during the period of the general elections.

“No political contest should ever be perceived as a do-or-die affair. Any candidate who is prepared to shed blood or to spend huge sums of money to buy votes or to comprise INEC shows that he or she is seeking political office for pure self-aggrandizement.”

On his part, Daniel Okoh, president of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), said the body had registered with INEC to observe the forthcoming elections.

Okoh said CAN had trained 1,200 observers noting that international observers from the All African Conference of Churches would also observe the elections.

“This will be our modest contribution in ensuring a free, fair, and credible election in Nigeria this year,” the CAN president said.

Ignatius Kaigama, Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, asked Nigerians to make informed choices during the elections rather than abandoning the future of the country to people without an interest in Nigeria.

“With our votes in the coming weeks, we can either choose a reasonable and productive use of power towards unity, security, a good economy or just abandon our fate in the hands of people who have neither capacity nor conscience,” Kaigama said.