Dan Nwanyanwu, the national chairman of the Zenith Labour Party, claimed on Tuesday that the Central Bank of Nigeria’s new cash withdrawal limit policy was the ideal tactic for preventing vote-buying in the upcoming elections.
This occurred as he revealed that some politicians were actively campaigning to have the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System not be used during the elections by using questionable legal actions.
He made the assertions when he appeared on Channels TV’s Politics Today.
To lessen the amount of cash in circulation, the Central Bank set a maximum limit on over-the-counter cash withdrawals by individuals and corporate organisations per week in a circular that was published on December 6, 2022.
The lawyer-turned-politician, however, thinks this argument has some merit because, if put into practice, he claims, it will help purge the political system of unneeded financial incentives.
He said, “The menace of vote-buying is the reason why we support this new policy by the CBN on cash movements.
“There is no way it won’t affect those who carry a huge amount of money to the polling unit, and that is why you see them crying. They want it to be changed and stepped down.
“We thank Mr. President for giving approval for that and by the end of this month, any old money kept in obscure locations becomes toilet paper and they should further our access to the new notes until after the elections.
“That is a very good policy the central government brought which Mr. President graciously approved.”
Nwanyanwu, who doubles as the presidential candidate of the ZLP noted that threats against the 2023 general election were potent despite assurances by the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, that elections would go on as planned.
Recall that President Muhammadu Buhari, has repeatedly assured Nigerians that elections will be free, fair, and transparent.
The ZLP candidate said, “The threat against the 2023 general election is potent. We have seen a lot of insecurity across the country.
“The latest being the attempt by some political parties to truncate the use of BVAS and IREV and also taking some legal processes to get the INEC chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, to be removed from office and to ban him from holding public office for 10 years.
“First of all, they went to a court in Umuahia, they had no facts, they presented nothing, it was based on speculation. The court dismissed it, they went to the Court of Appeal, and it was also dismissed. They came back to Abuja and it was dismissed last week. They might go elsewhere soon because they are on forum shopping.
“I met some parliamentarians a week before Christmas at a public place and they were calling me Mr. BVAS and when I asked the reason for calling me that name, they said I am talking too much about the BVAS.
“During our discussion, they said they regretted passing the law that it was not explained well to them and if they had known, it would not have been passed. I told them it is too late to change anything but they said it would be amended. So, you can see that there are various interests that do not want free, fair and credible elections.
“We are talking for common good. If you put bad people in government, they have nothing to offer and this is why we want the best laws and capacity and political will to get the right things done.”
Discussion about this post