From Okwe Obi, Abuja
Presidential Candidate of the People’s Redemption Party (PRP), Kola Abiola, has said the currency redesign, which has crippled economic activities as a result of the scarcity of the naira was ill-timed.
Abiola, who stated this after his was endorsed by Fulani community yesterday in Abuja, said the government should have made enough provisions for cash and increase the number of banks in rural areas before forging ahead with the process.
“This is a very bad time, not so much time but more implemented policy. What had happened is a collective mess.
“You have a situation where you wait too late and does not really taught out, you Banks does not cope with the inflows, you don’t have enough cash out there, many citizens are not even in the banking system.
“If you are in the village or local government where there is no bank, how do you change the money? You need to be inclusive before you bring policy that is inclusive.
“How do we transact? The banking software is not robust to even take care of the activities that we do and you are force to now do online, so what happen is that a lot of this banking software has crashed, nobody give an audit of the outdated software to be sure that they can actually cope with the money increase.
“What we are having now is that, things are bouncing back, their software are crashing or you make a payment that people does not received for two weeks, that’s the problem they need to have done it earlier on before the implementing of this.
“Like any other thing in Nigeria, all they do is look at it from their own perspective forgetting that everybody is not in their own perspective.
“They never take it to the account of a common person, the guy in the village or the local government where there is no bank, how will they survive without cash?
“Even when the banking software are not robust enough to take the money. So there is something you need to as a country first to get them inclusive and them you can implement the policy, but the way it’s implemented now is just complicated,” he said.
Speaking on his endorsement, he said: “It is a fantastic endorsement for us. For the party that everybody can not see coming, that is when they will begin to see us coming when they see groups like that endorse us.
“It shows we are very inclusive in our party and we are truly national party. Like I show you before, we have 719 candidate in this election. 23 governors, 44 senators and the rest.
“By doing this it got to show you that we are truly national. I am from the southwest, Aro is from Kaduna South and his a Christian and for us to have that kind of support is an absolute good thing for Nigeria and for the party.”
Abiola parried insinuations of violence after the presidential plebiscite
“Look, as long as we have done an election in this country before, like the previous one which was the fair and credible election, was there any fight? No there was not.
“So long as people come out to vote and their votes count, I can’t see any post election violence coming,” he said.
Fulani Leader, Southern Kaduna, Ibrahim Abdullahi, said Arewa community would take in five million votes for PRP.
Abdullahi said the selection of PRP was a breath of fresh air because most Nigerians were fed up with the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), whose leadership over the years have not metamorphosed to good governance.
He said: “What I did here was the Fulani pastoral seems to have about Five millions vote or there about, but this time around when the opportunity was given for people to register online, we decided to generate a data of young Fulani graduates whom we provided with phone devices to go Ruga to Ruga which is their nomadic settlement and register those people so that we can be able to increase our voting capacity.
“We are happy to inform the general public, the Nigerians that we can produce seven Millions votes now confidently. What form our decision to identify with PRP is very simple. We have just 2-3 reason.
“We are tired. we have not seen any difference between the ruling APC and PDP.
“It is the same people, the same culture and the same injustice if Nigerians make mistake this time around to vote this same people.
“Now what we are hoping for is a complete change and in Kola Abiola, we have seen a gentle man that can drive Nigerian forward and it’s natural if Nigerians have what is called morality we just go and plead with Kola Abiola to come and run for the position of the president in this country.
“And all other candidates and political party should come and rally round and support him because of what happened to his father and his contribution to this nation in so many spheres of life like sport, education, politics, commerce and so on.
“Chief MKO Abiola has contributed tirelessly, he supported most of people we call General today from when there were Lieutenant.
“Even what happened to his father, I think Nigerians should go and beg Kola Abiola to come and rule this country and that is justice.
“Like in America, many Bushes and Kennedys have ruled in America as a result of their family legacy. In Nigerian we need to have the spirit of reciprocating.
“Now that we have someone from MKO Abiola’s family, if Nigeria leader are truly seriou, we should come out and rally round and vote for him.
“What we are saying this time around is that l, the Fulani man has seen the worse of PDP and APC government and therefore, nobody would come and tell us to vote because somebody is a Northerner, Fulani or Muslim.
“We are going to vote based on capacity, patriotism and justice, and in Kola Abiola we have seen a man that can provide to that kind of leadership.”