The Nation Newspapers

It has been reported that Kano State Governor Abdullahi Ganduje yesterday raised the alarm that  ” anti-June 12 elements” were bent on scuttling the nation’s democracy.

He said the elements were “regrouping and dangerously masquerading” in the prevailing crisis generated by the new cash policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to achieve their goal.

Ganduje alleged that the elements consisted of “unknown political parties” working in consort with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The governor was reacting to an interim injunction by a Federal High Court in Abuja stopping the CBN from extending the 10-day deadline for swapping old naira notes for new ones. The extension ends on Friday.

Also yesterday, the Federal Government blamed its failure to end the impasse generated by the naira redesign on ”some opposition political parties.”

Ganduje had in a statement in Kano alleged that open support for the naira redesign by the PDP and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, showed collaboration between the opposition and the CBN to weaken the masses through harsh policies and thwart democracy.  

The statement by Kano State Commissioner for Information   Muhammad Garba reads in part: “The group’s latest attempt is camouflaging in unknown political parties through the use of a legal instrument to further impose unfeasible cash policy that is taking its toll on the masses.

“The unknown political parties are also allegedly colluding with the main opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), to execute this fiendish scheme.

“It is unfortunate that the CBN and its collaborators are insisting unnecessarily on the imposition of an unreasonable time frame for the old naira notes to cease to be legal tender, in total refutation of the obvious national dearth in the necessary technological infrastructure for the process.