The governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, has blamed those he referred to as inherited Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members in the All Progressives Congress (APC) for ‘misleading’ President Muhammadu Buhari on the naira redesign policy.
The Supreme Court on Friday ordered that old N200, N500, and N1,000 notes which were initially suspended from circulating by the Central Bank of Nigeria through the orders of the President, remain in circulation till December 31, 2023.
The court held that the unlawful use of executive powers by the President, inflicted unprecedented economic hardship on the citizens by denying them ownership of and access to their money.
Reacting to the judgement on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Friday, Governor Bello, who is one of the three original state governors that challenged the Federal Government at the Supreme Court, described it as sabotage by some party members and some others who crossed over from the opposition PDP.
“The policy is, more or less, like funds confiscation packaged so beautifully, but Mr President was deceived in the implementation,” Bello said.
CBN's naira swap policy was sabotaged and President Buhari was betrayed, says Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State.#CTVTweets#PoliticsToday pic.twitter.com/xsedrmLhD4
— Channels Television (@channelstv) March 3, 2023
Asked to disclose the identity of those behind the alleged deception, he said, “Some (proponents of the policy) are members of our party, some are inherited PDP members in the party.
“Where have you ever seen an APC policy being implemented and you see opposition members praising it? This has happened in this particular instance.”
He maintained that the APC thinks its policies before implementing it, saying that those that are not well thought out are always resisted, but that in this case the President’s economic advisers misled him.
“In APC, we agree to disagree, that is why we are serving the public,” Bello said.
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“We think through our policies before they are being implemented and those that are not well thought over before implementation that we know are going to affect the people, we will resist them and part of them is this naira redesign and every other issue that is contained with it.
“So, those that are advising Mr President economically misled Mr President; in this particular instance, he didn’t get it right.”
Governor Bello and his Kaduna State counterpart, Nasir El-Rufai, were in court to witness the judgement on the naira redesign policy on Friday.