The Senator representing Kogi West in the National Assembly, Smart Adeyemi, has predicted the February 25 presidential race to a straight contest between the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and his Labour Party (LP) opponent, Mr. Peter Obi.
Adeyemi, an APC senator, held the view while chatting with journalists at the National Assembly, Abuja, on Saturday.
He spoke against the backdrop of incessant fuel scarcity and the hardship being experienced by Nigerians in exchanging their old Naira notes to the new one across the country.
It would be recalled that Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has alleged that some powerful people in the presidency are working against Tinubu using fuel scarcity and Naira redesign, and the attendant scarcity of the currency.
Senator Adeyemi said after President Buhari’s 8 years in the presidency as a northerner, it is only “fair, just and equitable for the South to produce the next president in 2023.”
Apparently referring to the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic (Party PDP), Atiku Abubakar and his party, Adeyemi said the “PDP has disregarded the course of Nigerian unity, thereby creating a big problem for the country by routing for a northern candidate to succeed Buhari.”
“Don’t create a situation where the South-west and South-east will lose faith in the country and opt to go their separate ways,” he said.
Speaking on the hardship being experienced by Nigerians in accessing the new Naira notes, Adeyemi said the 7 days given by President Buhari to bring succor to the people is too long a period.
According to him, from the onset, the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, said she was not consulted on the Naira redesign project.
“Good as the policy may be, it shouldn’t be at the detriment of the masses who shouldn’t suffer for the atrocities of the elite,” Adeyemi said, adding that “some have died for lack of money to buy their regular medications.”
Adeyemi wondered why banks collected old Naira notes from the people without releasing the new notes to them.
He warned the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, who he accused of partisan politics, “not to allow people break coconut on his head.”