Nasir el-Rufai, the governor of Kaduna, asserts that President Muhammadu Buhari handled the currency redesign strategy incorrectly.
In an interview with the BBC Hausa on Monday, El-Rufai said that the policy was put into place to make the All Progressives Congress (APC) lose the election.
He asserted that vote-buying was not the reason governors opposed the strategy; rather, they were opposed due to the suffering it had caused.
El-Rufai stated, “We reviewed this policy, the hardship it put people into, and the feeling of hatred Nigerians developed for the APC because Nigerians are blaming the APC and the people who introduced the policy did it to make our party lose the election.”
“After we finished our review, we agreed that the supreme court’s decision—that the old and new notes should be used until the case is resolved—should be followed.
“Did voter rigging begin today? Why didn’t the money have a new look before? Why now? Second, can only naira be used to buy votes? You can buy it with dollars, euros, or sena, and you can feed the voters.
You can buy votes in a number of different ways. Money cannot be removed from politics, but it can be reduced. Because of vote buying, we are not opposed to this policy. We are against it, I swear to God, not because of the elections but because of how we saw people suffering.
The individuals who advocated for the naira’s redesign are not APC members. Godwin Emefiele was brought in by the PDP, as you can see. We are familiar with the others with whom the decision was made, and when the time comes, we will expose them because they are not party members.
“God willing, on Saturday, the masses will retaliate against those who want to drag our party to the ground. The APC gave some of them an opportunity to get money that will be more than enough for them to shop. We knew some of them when shopping in their homes was difficult for them eight years ago, but now, they have money that you could never have imagined.
We will bring them out and inquire about where they got their money, I swear to God. Our reputation has been damaged as governors and as a result of the president’s belief in people. We are against the naira redesign policy because he has been told governors are thieves.
“Even if we approach him and say, “Our leader, you have been lied to in this place,” and he responds, “I understand and will take action on it,” the moment we leave, he will be told not to do so. Nine times out of ten, everyone is a nine. We believe the president made a mistake in this regard.