The usual bustling in most parts of Lagos State came to a sudden stop today as Lagosians in different parts of the state trooped out to protest against the naira swap policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Affected areas include Mile 12, Ketu, Ojota, Agege where protesters set bonfire, disrupting the flow of traffic.
As of the time of filing in this report, the unrest has spread to the ever-busy Lagos-Abeokuta expressway where the protesters, majority of whom are women, complained bitterly about the scarcity of the new naira notes.
Information reaching the Nigerian Observer indicates that the state’s police command has deployed its men to restore normalcy to most of the affected areas.
“Free movement of vehicles and people fully restored. Our officers and men are still on ground to prevent any breakdown of law and order,” SP Benjamin Hundeyin, Police Public Relations Officer, Lagos State Command, said.
It should be recalled that due to the scarcity of the new naira notes, a number of states approached the Supreme Court of Nigeria seeking to extend the deadline for the use of the old naira notes.
At its sitting on Wednesday February 15, the apex court adjourned the hearing in the suit to February 22, allowing states who wanted to be joined as co-respondents and co-plaintiffs to file in their documents. It also made it known that while the case lasted, the old notes of N200, N500 and N1000 remain legal tender.
However, while addressing the nation yesterday, the president and commander in chief of the armed forces, Muhammadu Buhari, extended the use of only N200 note till April 10, 2023.
The president said N2.1 trillion, representing 80 percent of the currency held outside of the banking system, had been retrieved, adding that the old N500 and N1000 notes should be redeemed at the CBN and other designated locations, a move some lawyers have described as contravening the order of the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, Edo State Governor, in a bid to alleviate the suffering of the people has ordered the state’s public transport company to carry Edolites free of charge. This is in addition to supervising the withdrawal of the new naira notes across different commercial centres in the state just as he facilitated the deployment of more security personnel to protest banks and other sensitive institutions.
The unfolding events have made many economists to add their voices to the naira redesign policy of the CBN.
According to Andrew Nevin, chief economist of PwC, Nigeria’s initial N3.2 trillion in circulation before the naira redesign policy kicked off, represented just 1.8 percent of Nigeria’s GDP, according to the information shared on his Twitter handle.
According to him, the United States of America has $2.3 trillion in circulation, representing 9.1 percent of the country’s GDP. The United Kingdom has 82 billion pound sterling in circulation, amounting to 3.2 percent on the country’s GDP while the European Union has 1.6 trillion euros in circulation, representing 10.5 percent of the bloc’s GDP.
