A controversial Islamic scholar, Ahmad Gumi, has said the naira redesign policy embarked on by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will make kidnappers demand dollars for ransom.
The CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, on October 26, announced plans by the apex bank to redesign some new naira notes.
He said the new notes include N200, N500 and N1000, adding that the new design and issues will be effective from mid-December 2022.
Reacting to this development, Gumi said the policy is ill-timed and will wreak havoc on the economy of the country and thus adversely affect the citizens.
The cleric said this on his Facebook page on Saturday titled: ‘Changing the Naira: This is no time for economic kamikaze!’
Gumi said: “As for the question of starving kidnappers of the naira, it goes without saying that they will resort to dollars and other hard currencies which will further put more pressure on it making the rotten situation worse.
“This is no time for economic kamikaze! People that sell goods will tell you that most Nigerians don’t have the money to buy things; therefore most traders are running at a loss and are already folding up. At this junction, anything that can cause a cash crunch will be a disaster for the nation.
“Many good ideas are marred by wrong timing. This is likely to be another one. No matter how ingenious the hatchers may romanticize; the benefit will remain phantom since the reality on the ground is incongruous and it spells doom for the escapade.
Meanwhile, this is not the first time the CBN or the Nigerian government would be redesigning certain naira notes.
Below is a timeline of times the country had introduced new notes to phase out old ones:
1984: It was first done in 1984, coincidentally by the same Muhammadu Buhari, then a Military Head of State. Unlike Emefiele, who gave mainly economic reasons for redesigning the naira notes, Buhari’s redesigning of the naira in 1984 was in pursuit of his anti-corruption war against the political class in the Shehu Shagari-led second republic.
He had directed citizens to deposit their money in banks in exchange for new bills, a move believed to be aimed at catching politicians suspected to have embezzled public funds, and stashed them away.
2005-2007: within this period, the central bank introduced polymer naira notes. It began with N20 in 2005, and afterwards, all lower denominations of naira – from N5 to N50 were converted from paper to polymer notes.
According to the CBN, in its publicity campaigns for the polymer notes, it argued that they are “user-friendly, they looked better and remain crisp over a long period, and they do not stain, rumple or tear easily….” and will also “save the nation huge sums of money used for reprinting the traditional paper notes.
2014: The CBN, in commemoration of Nigeria’s centenary, redesigned the N100 note by including new features.
According to Emefiele, who was newly appointed CBN Governor at the time, the new note was designed with enhanced security to offer “robust resistance against counterfeiting”. He added that the new notes have features for the visually impaired.