Nasir El-Rufai, governor of Kaduna State, has asked Nigerians to stop depositing their old naira notes in banks, but to keep using, while promising that Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), will reverse the naira redesign policy if elected as the next president.
El-Rufai stated this on Tuesday in a town hall meeting with leaders of markets in Kaduna state.
“Stop returning your money to the banks, nobody will devalue your money, I am pleading with you, it’s just a matter of time, and now it’s remaining 18 days to the election. After the election wait for what Bola Tinubu will say. He will reverse the policy,” El-Rufai told the audience in Hausa at the meeting.
“Please help us to deliver this message to your brothers and sisters and everyone else to stop taking your old naira notes money to the banks, and continue doing your business transactions with it.”
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) announced the new naira notes policy last October and initially gave 31 January as the deadline for the use of the old notes, but later shifted the deadline to February 10.
El-Rufai has spoken out strongly against the naira redesign policy, saying that it was a deliberate attempt by some “elements” in the presidency to sabotage the electoral chances of the presidential candidate of the ruling APC.
Also, the Kaduna governor, alongside his counterparts in Zamfara and Kogi States sued the federal government at the Supreme Court over the deadline for the use of the old naira notes.
The Supreme Court Wednesday ordered the CBN not to end the use of old naira notes on 10 February.
The court gave the order temporarily, cancelling the CBN’s 10 February deadline to end the validity of the old versions of the banknotes based on an ex parte application filed by the state governments.
