Nigerians are suffering under cash crunch, Buhari should act – Accord Chair, Nalado

By Ikechukwu Okaforadi

The National chairman of Accord Party, Muhammad Lawal Nalado, has raised the alarm that Nigerians are suffering under the huge cash and fuel scarcity, even as he charged President Muhammadu Buhari and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele, to rise up and address the challenges for a successful 223 general elections.
Nalado who briefed journàlists on the State of the nation after the Party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting in Abuja, also said the party, as one of the leading opposition parties in the country, is working to emerge the ruling party by ensuring that it wins more elective seats in the forthcoming general election.
He said the party is poised to win massively in the election, but regretted that the cashless policy may affect the conduct of the election, hence he enjoined the CBN to make the new naira notes available to Nigerians or recirculate the old notes if there is lack of capacity to produce the new notes.
While pointing out that Accord as a party is not entirely against the policy, Nalado said the suffering it has inflicted on Nigerians is not what was expected at the conception of the policy.
He expressed concern that if the crisis of fuel and cash is not addressed, it will hurt the conduct of the 2023 general election, adding “As party administrators, we are so much concerned with what is happening in this country today regards to this monitory issue. We are not saying the policy is bad, but we are not happy with the hardship it has caused to Nigerian citizens.
“We believe if it is not addressed properly, it is going to affect so many things including the conduct of the election.
“So, this matter needs to be looked into and we are calling on the federal government and the CBN to step in to make money available for people to withdraw the money from banks.
“I am calling on the federal government and the CBN to step in and make this money available to people to reduce the hardship”, he stated.
He said any policy being introduced to better the lives of the citizens should not turn around and put the citizens in a difficult situation.
“No matter the good policy we want to introduce in this country, I am sure we are doing it for the benefit of Nigerians. So any policy that will put Nigerians in difficulty, I think that policy should not be good enough, if it is allowed like this many Nigerians will fall into a problem.
“The problem is not only on money, but it is also on petroleum, even if you get it, you don’t have money.
“On Election Day, definitely there will be a need for the movement of material from CBN to various election points, if there is no fuel, I doubt if that one will be possible.
“Government should make sure that fuel is available everywhere and make sure that money is available for everyone”, he noted.
Nalado however, expressed satisfaction with the preparation level of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
He said the political parties had a stakeholders’ meeting with INEC, and part of the things they discussed was the issue of conducting the election INEC confirmed to them the level of their preparedness but they too were in doubt about the availability of fuel and cash.
“So, for this election to be successful, the Federal Government and the CBN have to step in to complement”, he added.