Naira redesign policy: Sowore slams Atiku for making U-turn

The African Action Congress (AAC) presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, has slammed his counterpart in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, for backtracking on his reaction to the ongoing naira redesign policy.

Contrary to his earlier position on the policy, the former Vice President had in a series of tweets on Sunday urged the apex bank to allow commercial banks accept deposits of the old N500 and N1,000 notes.

However, in a series of tweets urged the CBN to allow commercial banks collect deposit of old N1000 and N500 notes in order to cushion the effect of the policy on ordinary citizens who he said are bearing the brunt of the policy.

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Atiku wrote: “The CBN currency policy is hurting ordinary citizens and those who legitimately earned their money. 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 currency should be immediately made available in sufficient quantities to alleviate the suffering of the masses.

“I assure you that when we come to power by the mandate of your votes, the PDP administration will not allow any Nigerian who legitimately earned their money to lose a single kobo of it. You can take that promise to the bank because our aim is to create prosperity and not to impoverish our people.”

However, Sowore in a reaction via his Twitter handle on Monday described Atiku as an opportunist who thought he could leverage naira redesign policy to win the forthcoming election.

He insisted the policy was a fraud contrived to lure Nigerians into more misery.

“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 going to hurt poor Nigerians. Reason I keep saying there is no difference. He’s coming to sell everything”, the tweet reads.