The controversial naira redesign policy introduced at the winding up of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, was the brainchild of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, it has been rvealed.
A book that chronicled the biography of former President Buhari’s administration titled: “From Soldier to Statesman: The Legacy of Muhammadu Buhari,” authored by Dr. Charles Omole and presented at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja, disclosed that the proposal to redesign the naira did not originate from the CBN under its former governor, Godwin Emefiele, as widely believed.
According to the book, the cardinal objective of the naira redesign policy was starvie vote buyers of cash ahead of the 2023 general election.
The book stated that the policy, launched in October 2022, precipitated a severe cash crunch that plunged millions of Nigerians into hardship, triggering what many described as a humanitarian crisis in the months leading up to the polls.
While officially framed as a reform to promote a cashless economy, strengthen monetary policy and curb illicit activities such as ransom payments, cash hoarding and vote buying, its implementation proved deeply disruptive.
Few policies of the Buhari era generated as much heat. With hindsight, critics viewed the redesign as a political torpedo aimed at undermining the governing party’s electoral prospects.
According to the book, long before the redesign itself, Buhari had approved a proposal from monetary authorities to upgrade domestic currency production, ending reliance on foreign printers and building national capacity.
He funded the necessary upgrades and insisted on local capability. It was along this trajectory, the book notes, that the redesign proposal emerged, now packaged with the ambition of sanitising cash flows and undercutting money politics.
