The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has accused commercial banks of being responsible for the scarcity of the new naira notes.

He made the accusation on Tuesday during a meeting with the House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee on the Review of the CBN’s cashless policy and the extension of the deadline of the old naira notes, held in Abuja.

Emefiele, who was accompanied to the meeting by all the four Deputy Governors of the CBN, accused the commercial banks of breaching the apex bank guidelines, with the way the new naira was being sprayed in parties.

He said the apex bank was working closely with relevant agencies of the federal government to ensure full compliance with the CBN guidelines issued to the banks for the seamless distribution of the new banknotes.

Emefiele appealed to Nigerians for their support, stressing that the naira redesign will benefit the country in the future and was for the good of Nigerians.

He said: “I addressed the bankers on Sunday and I expressed to them my disappointment and in fact, the disappointment of the president, the disappointment of leaders in the country with the way this has gone on because many of us have unfortunately seen the new naira instead of being used for the purpose it was meant, the new naira is being used in parties, in celebrations.

“Some of them (bank CEOs) said well, maybe it’s money from the ATMs and I said no, money from the ATMs are already broken.

“They are in leaflets but what we saw being stamped on people at parties were packages of the new naira notes which means they had breached certain aspects of the guidance note we gave to them.

“And when I met President Buhari, I told him that we have met with the EFCC, the ICPC and NFIU and that we are now going to bring EFCC, ICPC, NFIU to join us in monitoring the flow of this currency to our people.

“I must say that I am even delighted that even yesterday, I read that the DSS has started that, which is what we want so that everybody knows that we are conducting this activity to the best of our ability.

“We are doing this for the good of Nigerians. We are doing this so that the Nigerian economy can be better than it is today and I am saying that we are beginning to see some of the benefits.”

Emefiele said the currency redesign policy has so far recorded about a 75 percent success rate since the new naira notes were introduced.

He said many of those in the rural and underserved locations across the 36 states of the country have had the opportunity of swapping their old banknotes for the new series of banknotes.

Emefiele said: “Inflation last month is not rising, not stagnating but somehow moderating. We are expecting that it will continue to moderate. The exchange rate to be stable and we are hoping that with this exercise, the naira can even get stronger.

“We know in the process that some will be hurt, I will say temporarily. But it’s a pain that I will appeal to all of us to please show some understanding because the overriding benefits to Nigerians is what we are interested in which is about making our economy stronger then combatting the high incidence of insecurity.

“Yes, we saw a few failings on the part of the banks and we appealed to EFCC, ICPC, NFIU; they are currently working with our officials nationwide to make sure that this process goes on seamlessly.

“We are happy they the exercise has achieved a success of over 75 percent in our villages, etc. It is on the basis of that we now have a 10 days extension for the more and more of this to be collected and then we make more disbursement.”

The Labour Party (LP) flagbearer, Peter Obi, has suffered a major setback after the LP presidential campaign spokesperson for the Northeast, Muhammad Pantami, and other officials defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Pantami and other top Obi-Datti campaign officials announced their defection at a press conference on Tuesday.

Former Labour Party leaders have publicly backed the PDP’s presidential candidate, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.

Tribalism, godfatherism, and a lack of internal democracy were charged against Peter Obi and the LP.

Pantami said:

Based on the aforementioned issues raised, we the leaders, and stakeholders of about four million voters in the North East states of Taraba, Adamawa, Bauchi Gombe, and Borno, resolved to quit from the LP and resolved to declare our full support to Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the PDP.

According to him, the party’s and the presidential campaign council’s mainstream political decisions are skewed toward a specific region, the country’s south, excluding northerners.

He said:

We the northerners, constitute about 65 percent of the voting in the presidential election. Our members are totally not satisfied with this situation.

Despite the fact that the north has a greater percentage of voters, this problem of sideling persists, the current situation calls for action.

The Nigerian military has read the riot act to marketers of premium motor spirit (PMS) popularly known as petrol, to find a lasting solution to the lingering scarcity plaguing the country, or face military clampdown.

This is as group chief executive officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, Mele Kolo Kyari, has admitted that the fuel crisis situation has become a crisis of monumental proportions.

Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor, yesterday read the riot act during a engagement with Industry and Security Stakeholders in Abuja yesterday to tackle to fuel supply crisis.

General Irabor, who stressed that the federal government is not handicapped on what to do, urged the marketers and other stakeholders to address the situation urgently.

“The challenge of availability of fuel across the country has risen to a proportion that has become of great concern to the defence and security of our country.

“I have mandate of Mr President to come to say that because the fuel scarcity is a crisis of internal nature, which of course the police and other

security agencies should lead. And looking at the processes that have been emplaced to redress them, the solution lies in this room.

Government is not handicapped and there are alternatives. I need to also indicate that nobody is indispensable.

“But if it goes beyond the threshold that affects our defense and security, the government is actually not handicapped. There is an alternative.

“I believe and trust that solution will come. And if there is no solution, let me reiterate that government is not handicapped. And there is alternative, but I pray that it will not get to the level where the alternative will need to be activated,” the CDS said.

Also speaking, the inspector general of Police, Usman Alkali Baba, said the Police will assist the NNPC in monitoring the process of fuel distribution to ensure we end this crisis.

He added if the distribution process is lacking or there are just loopholes to be avoided by those who want to exploit it, the alternative to increase the level of monitoring and supervision.

Group CEO of NNPC Mele Kyari, however emphasized that there is no supply problem but rather the country is facing a dislocation in the distribution of petrol by marketers who are greedy and out to exploit the system.

“We are not dealing with a supply problem. All our suppliers are either in this room or represented in this room. As we speak now, we have 831 million litres in marine that is in shuttle vessels and in mother vessels.

“In the various depots, which all of us here represent, including NNPC, we have up to 738 million litres of fuel in depots that are documented on the platform of the regulator of the industry, the NMDPRA.”

“We regret this situation. We apologize to Nigerians, but definitely the matter is within sight and this is not created by any means to disrupt anything, but it is the real realities of market that are moving and we are very convinced that we can contain this situation. “

“We have reviewed the situation and we have recognised that pricing is a major issue, challenges that we’re facing around the distribution of PMS in our country. Of course, there are other other issues including logistic issues associated with distribution and these matters are now being carefully resolved.

“We are responding to the issues around pricing so that no one exploits Nigerians, unduly and also to to make sure that these products reach their destinations as agreed and we putting up a very enormous framework for monitoring so that every truck that leaves every depot we ensure that it gets to the depot, particularly for major cities in the country, where those products must be delivered. There is no problem of supply. It is a a challenge of dislocation of where this product ends up with and this engagement has enabled us to agree with the marketers to make sure that wherever designed to take your product just in that location and also the government security agencies will do everything possible to ensure enforcement, including the regulatory control by the Nigerian Midstream and downstream regulatory authority. We are very comfortable that this will come, uh, as we already seen in some parts of the country. It is also obvious that the queues that we are seeing are largely in NNPC retail stations and major marketers retail station and some other unassociated but big time trading companies because they sell at very very regulated prices and we are sure that the increased volume that we are pushing into the market and also the understanding that we are reaching with them not to sell at the depot at prices that are clearly in the at the level of greed, it will ease the situation,” he said.

The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu has stated that Peter Obi, standard bearer of the Labour Party (LP), is a danger to those who will fall for his “misrule”.

This was made known on Tuesday by Tinubu while speaking at a rally in Awka, capital city of Anambra.

Tinubu said Obi lives in Lagos because he is “guilty” of not developing his home state.

The former governor of Lagos said residents of Anambra should not vote for Obi as president because he was “ill-equipped” to be governor.

“I know I can do these things because I made similar progress when governor of Lagos. Meanwhile, one of my opponents is a former governor of your state. But he does not live among you. He lives in Lagos,” he said.

“I live in Lagos because I am pleased with the progress we made in turning Lagos into one of Africa’s biggest economies. My opponent, however, refuses to live among you because he feels guilty for not giving you the development and growth you deserved from him.

“Mr. Stingy refused to use the state’s money to help its people. He sacrificed your welfare and wellbeing so that he can boast that he saved money. But what good is saving money if you refuse to save your own people?

“That type of man is a danger to those unfortunate enough to be subject to his misrule. Such a man was ill equipped to be your governor. Do not make him your president.”

Also speaking at another rally in Calabar, the Cross River capital, Tinubu said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) could not provide electricity to roast corn while it was in power for 16 years.

The former governor of Lagos also said Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the PDP, would sell government assets for himself if elected.

“Don’t mind PDP and their lies of 16 years. They can’t provide electricity to roast corn. They keep on lying,” he said.

“They say privatisation, privatisation into Atiku’s pocket. We must end that. PDP does not know the way. They don’t know how to think.”