Coalition of 52 Northern Groups (CNG) has raised the alarm over an alleged plot by some powerful elements to scuttle the February 25 presidential election following the upsurge in the frequency of attacks on public facilities, the lingering fuel crisis and the controversy trailing the Naira redesign policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), among others.
The coalition spokesman, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, who addressed a press conference in Abuja, yesterday, noted the unrelenting disturbances in the South-East, encouraged by certain powerful interests entrenched in the current administration in the form of escalated violence using the banned Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and other authors of mindless violence and separatism.
He said as the representatives of various interest groups from Northern Nigeria, the CNG has watched and studied these events carefully and with considerable restraint and maturity, until recently, when suspicions of a grand plot to scuttle the 2023 polls reached a point whereby silence has become complicity and inaction no longer an option.
He noted particularly, the ratification and vigorous pursuit of a regime of harsh unrealistic economic and financial policies by the Central Bank of Nigeria less than a month to the election, inflicting pains on the electorates and heating up the political atmosphere.
"Another hard proof of potential threat to a peaceful transition through an acceptable electoral process, is having fuel scarcity grounding activities and frustrating the population a month to the election. Already many Nigerian families and businesses are groaning over the scarcity of fuel and the hike in the pump price ranging from N270 to N400 per litre in recent weeks, a move seen by many as the handiwork of high-profile saboteurs bent on throwing a wedge in the nation's democratic process by derailing the coming elections.
"At the same time, embarking on Naira Exchange and making the new currency scarce by the CBN is another latent ground for suspicion. The timing for the implementation of such a policy in a country in which the total number of deposit money bank branches is just 5,437 with a concentration 1,624 branches in Lagos alone, other southern states 2,235, and the entire Northern Nigerian states 1,188, Abuja 390 is certainly a calculated effort to bring about general confusion that would threaten the 2023 polls.
"Noteworthy as well is that, of the 109 million adults in Nigeria, only 56 million have BVNs, leaving 53 million Nigerian adults without access to digital payment systems when little cash is available. Emefiele's apparent arrogant stance on no going back on the January 31st deadline despite the patriotic intervention of the Nigerian Senate urging the CBN to extend the deadline by 6 months, the outright rejection of the policy by the House of Representatives and the Nigerian Governors Forum, has inadvertently made the situation all the more suspicious.
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"Electricity tariff went up, a month to the general election and suddenly, public tertiary institutions commenced an exorbitant hike in students' tuition, adding to other factors that are making life difficult for Nigerians as a people. Most disturbing is the CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele's rigid 31 January 2023 deadline for the old and new currency exchange when just about 10 percent of the population of 225m people have touched or seen the new currency," he said.
Consequent upon the foregone observations, he warned that any attempt from any quarters, to hoist any form of undemocratic arrangement short of a transparent, free and fair elections will be roundly resisted and rejected. He also warned that all manifestations of schemes by political opportunists desperate to cover their tracks of corruption and wanton abuses by scuttling the elections would face stiff resistance.
He called on Nigerians to prepare to defend the nation's hard-earned democracy from any attempt to tamper with the democratic electoral process be it in the form of interim government arrangement or military intervention under whatever pretext and cautioned all political parties and their candidates to eschew personal interests and insist on a peaceful democratic transition and reject any form of undemocratic arrangement.
