Minister of State for Labour, Festus Keyamo on Friday said although President Muhammadu Buhari had good intentions with the naira redesign policy but he (Buhari) was heeding a wrong advice.
This comes after the President’s speech on Thursday ordering that only the old N200 naira notes be circulated until April 10, 2023, in an effort to allay the suffering of the populace brought on by the shortage of naira notes.
On Friday night’s episode of The 2023 Verdict on Channels Television, Keyamo who also doubles as the official spokesperson for APC 2023 Presidential Campaign Council said that despite the President acting honestly, he might have received bad advice.
He added that he would have advised the President to comply with the Supreme Court order, which was to recirculate all the old notes.
“My view is that the President acted honestly, without intention to slight the Supreme Court, but he may have acted on wrong advice. I did not give that advice, it’s not my responsibility. I do not know who gave that advice.
“I want to say this openly, because tomorrow, people would ask me where I stood at this time. So, I think the President did not, because in his speech, he acknowledged that there were certain matters in court. So, he thought he was playing safe by saying okay, before you decide these matters in court, may I just provide some middle ground, so that the country is burning, there are riots everywhere, so let me just try and provide some succour for people, whilst acknowledging the matters are in court.
“Now, if I were to advise him, I would have advised differently. (I would have advised him) to comply with the terms of the order of the Supreme Court. All the notes should circulate for now, all the notes. All the old notes should circulate side by side with the new notes for now, because that is the order of the Supreme Court.”
Keyamo also said that all authorities in Nigeria must obey the orders of the Supreme Court, stating that “anything to the contrary is a descent to anarchy, and I can tell you, the day we begin to disobey the order of the Supreme Court, that is an invitation to intervention in our democracy…”
