Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, a former governor of Kano State, expressed surprise at the criticism of President Muhammadu Buhari by several governors chosen on the platform of the governing All Progressives Party (APC) about the Naira redesign policy.
The New Nigerian People Party’s (NNPP) presidential candidate expressed surprise at how the APC leaders were criticising the Nigerian president for working with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to change some of the nation’s banknotes in order to address issues like vote-buying and money laundering.
Recalls that that certain APC governors sued the federal government, the Central Bank of Nigeria, and the Attorney General of the Federation over the new naira redesign policy. They criticised President Buhari’s administration for enacting such a policy at a time when the nation was already dealing with several problems.
The APC governors responded that way, according to the NNPP presidential candidate, since the policy finally rendered their riches unusable. “Banks have branches in every state, and some even have the national headquarters of those institutions,” he asserted. On the one hand, we believed they (governors) would steal every dollar from government buildings and other places.
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Kwankwaso also urged security and anti-corruption organisations to keep an eye on the politicians in order to prevent vote buying of any kind in the general elections of 2023. He said that his party will work with the federal authorities to track down and report vote-buyers, especially on election day.
“But we realized these same governors were abusing their leaders, insulting them; I was shocked. I never thought some of them could abuse Buhari to that level.
“On another hand, I was surprised that facts were coming out, and we began to wonder what was wrong with them. Maybe EFCC was right that some governors are keeping billions of naira in their compounds across the country.
“Now the policy has made that looted money completely useless; I think that is why they are angry. So we are so happy with the federal government on that; the money they have collected is completely zero; it has expired.