Omoyele Sowore, the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, has slammed the Peoples Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, for his (Atiku’s) stance on the country’s currency crisis.
Sowore described Atiku as an opportunist who believed he could win the presidential election by capitalizing on the “poverty-inducing” naira redesign scheme.
This was mentioned by the publisher of Sahara Reporters in a tweet uploaded to his Twitter profile on Monday morning.
Sowore claimed that the naira redesign policy was a “fraud” meant to harm “poor Nigerians.”
“Opportunistic @atiku thought he could capitalise on the poverty-inducing Naira Design to win election. Any real leader would have known that ‘naira design’ fraud was gonna […] hurt poor Nigerians. Reason I keep saying there is no difference. He’s coming to sell everything,” Sowore tweeted.
Sowore was reacting to Atiku’s new attitude that the CBN’s naira redesign program was harming impoverished Nigerians, while previously supporting the scheme.
In a tweet late Sunday night, the former vice president also urged the central bank to allow commercial banks to accept deposits in the old N500 and N1,000 notes.
“The CBN currency policy is affecting ordinary individuals and those who properly earned their money,” Atiku stated.
“The apex bank should, as a matter of urgency, allow commercial banks to join the CBN in the collection of the deposits of old N500 and N1000 notes. The new money should be made available in sufficient numbers to alleviate the suffering of the masses as soon as possible.
“I guarantee you that when we come to power by the mandate of your votes, the PDP administration would not let any Nigerian who rightfully earned their money to lose a single kobo of it. You can take that commitment to the bank because our goal is to bring wealth to our people, not to impoverish them.”
Atiku has always supported the CBN’s naira redesign strategy, and he has also opposed a further extension of the February 10 deadline, claiming that any further delay would undermine the policy’s purpose and intent.
He had, however, pleaded with the Federal Government not to use Nigerians as scapegoats “in the current war of titans over the redesign of the naira.”