The Northern Elders Forum (NEF) has described the naira redesign policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as a demarketing strategy for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the forthcoming 2023 general elections.
Hakeem Baba-Ahmed who is the spokesman of the NEF made this assertion on Channels Television’s programme, ‘The 2023 Verdict which was monitored by Africa Today News, New York.
He said, ‘President Muhammadu Buhari has messed up…to have allowed this kind of fiasco to happen on the eve of election when you are actually campaigning to have your party voted for.
‘This money thing is a major demarketing strategy for the APC. If the worst enemy of APC had design strategy for them to lose this election, he couldn’t have chosen a better strategy and this fiasco around this printing of naira notes.
‘Their own people said it is all contrived to make Tinubu to lose. The governors even said it was designed to make the candidate lose. The candidate himself says it was designed to make him lose and President Buhari is following him around saying, ‘vote for him.’
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Meanwhile, the NEF spokesperson said there is no reason to doubt the credibility and capacity of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct free, fair, and credible elections on February 25 and March 11.
He said, ‘At this stage, we believe in INEC, we believe in what they have done.’
He also said those against the planned deployment of the Bimodal Voter Registration Systems (BVAS) for the elections should make their reservations known with sufficient proof if they have any at all.
Baba-Ahmed said, ‘We have not found any basis for doubting the credibility or the competence of INEC to conduct an election.
‘In the North, we haven’t seen any evidence that they will compromise, partisan or support anybody.
‘There have been massive improvements in their processes and I believe in the leadership of INEC. I believe given the chance, they will deliver a very credible election.’
Africa Today News, New York reports that lately, there have been reports of politicians who are against the BVAS attempt to use the court of law to stop INEC from deploying BVAS and INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) in the elections.
But, INEC has consistently restated its commitment and determination to deploy the system for the 2023 general elections.
BVAS is stipulated in the Electoral Act 2022 and it is a technological system that allows the accreditation of voters through biometrics capturing, uploading of results amongst others.