From Maduabuchi Nmeribeh, Kano
A lawmaker representing Gwale Constituency in Kano state House of Assembly, Hon. Yusuf Babangida Sulaiman, has mobilized Federal and state legislators, Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), Students’ Union Governments (SUGs), for the immediate sack of the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele over what he described as draconian policies designed to kill Nigeria’s economy.
Hon. Sulaiman, who has been at the Kano State House of Assembly since 2011, decried the sufferings of poor Nigerians occasioned by the Naira Swap policy of the CBN, among others, which he said have affected all facets of the country’s economy.
According to him, Nigerians, both rich and poor are passing through hard times as the Naira notes, both old and new, are no longer available to access in bank counters, ATMs and POS.
In a statement he personally signed and made available to Journalists in Kano on Wednesday, the vibrant lawmaker passed a vote of no-confidence on the CBN Governor, and called for his immediate sack.
The Statement reads: “The world is facing serious pinch of inflation and threats to compression in availability of resources. Across Africa, we are feeling the crunch and heat due to the limitations around our level of industrialization.
“In Nigeria, apart from the fallout of the global economic contractions, there are several self inflicted woes that are
seriously injuring our economic progress and intensifying the drop in living conditions of our people, especially in Northern Nigeria.
“The Central Bank of Nigeria under Mr Godwin Emefiele has driven down the throats of Nigerians and Nigerian businesses, ridiculously draconian policies that have seriously hampered growth of economic activity and have caused simple processes to become cumbersome.
“This has resulted in people and businesses failing to reasonably: Meet obligations of educational fees abroad, settle medical bills in hospitals abroad; order and procure materials and equipment for industries; procure raw materials and feedstock for industries; and Source FOREX for travels and tours
“The above have greatly hampered progress and inflicted enormous difficulty in the productivity and value generation capacity of Nigerian people and businesses.
“It is desirable to critically consider who exactly the CBN Governor is working for.
“As the PDP has rightly observed, the ‘slight extension’ supposedly granted for use of old notes was muted by Atiku Abubakar, the PDP candidate and has continued to be celebrated by the PDP.
“The opposition PDP has been at the fore of applauding Emefiele’s recent actions, while the leading figures of the governing APC, the party’s Presidential Candidate Asiwaju Tinubu and the mass people of Nigeria have rejected, with vehemence, this insistence to put people of Nigeria through the hardship of currency redesign, under punitive conditions, through an unnecessarily brief window.
“In Kano today, commerce is suffering intensely, courtesy of Emefiele. There is no cash in people’s pockets and hands, there is no cash in bank ATMs and there is no cash at POS Centres.
“Old notes are vanishing and new notes are undelivered. Systems that are supposed to enable migration to online
platforms are either intruded by cybercriminals or suffering inadequate network signal provision.
“This is the situation at the very grassroots level as uncertainty hovers and anger brews. The onus now lies on both chambers of the National Assembly alongside States’ Houses of Assembly to pass a vote-of-no confidence on Mr Emefiele.
“The CSOs and NGOs must also unanimously rise and ask for Emefiele’s exit as he has led a sequence of years that have decimated our Naira, our trade and commerce, our systems and our general living conditions.
“He has built an ailing monetary system anchored on mere speculation, bogus loans and insider dealing, while
consistently fuelling uncertainty and low morale for the real sector.”
