Babatunde Fashola, minister of works and housing, has
praised Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives
Congress (APC), for his position on the naira redesign policy.
Speaking on Monday in an interview on Channels Television,
the minister said Tinubu stayed true to form as an “activist”.
On January 25, Tinubu said saboteurs in the administration
of President Muhammadu Buhari are using the petrol scarcity and naira redesign
to scuttle his chances in the forthcoming polls.
Speaking further, the minister said the government needs to
reflect on the naira redesign policy, considering the hardship faced by
Nigerians over the scarcity of new naira notes.
“It is the
responsibility of public servants, especially those responsible for those
policies, to look back and say ‘do we intend to cause this pain?’ And if the
policy is not working, perhaps you have to readjust and ask yourself whether
you thought this through,” he said.
“As a public servant before and now, I have had cause to revert
myself when I saw that my policies were causing unintended results.
“These policies are not yet delivering the results and it is
delivering a lot of inconvenience for a lot of people.
“That is why our
candidate was the first to speak out about it even though it is his party that
is in government and this is consistent with Asiwaju Tinubu’s position as an
activist, the fighter of the downtrodden, and champion of the downtrodden.
“It was after he spoke that the others now found their
voices. One of them said ‘don’t extend it’. What is he benefiting from
contributing to the pain by saying they should not extend it?
“Because it is clearly having consequences that are not
intended. One of the consequences that is unintended is pain and
inconvenience.”
Over the past days, Nigerians across the country have been
battling with the scarcity of new naira notes — a development that has led to
queues at banking halls and automated teller machine (ATM) points.
The development has also led to protests in parts of the
country.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had given a deadline of
January 31 for the use of old naira notes — but it was recently extended to
February 10.
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