Professor Chris Imumolen, Presidential candidate of the Accord Party, has asked the Federal Government, FG, to declare a state of emergency on the country’s economic sector as widespread hardship continues following prolonged fuel shortages and the sparse circulation of new naira notes.
This was as he pointed out that any further delay in adequately addressing the protracted naira notes and Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, hitches, may scuttle the 2023 elections.
He said though the naira redesign policy by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, was a good one, there was no sincerity of purpose in its implementation.
Imumolen made this call during a press briefing with Journalists, on Thursday, in Abuja.
He said: “Looking at the election, coming up two weeks from now, or three weeks from now, Nigeria has been grappling with twin problems of accessing cash, a situation caused by a now-failed Naira redesigned policy, an acute scarcity of PMS otherwise known as petrol.
“In most of the country were filling stations, thus crumbling the economy activities and provoking civil unrest all across Nigeria. This situation has now fueled speculations that the general election originally fixed for February 25 and March 11, this year might be postponed as unconfirmed reports claimed that there are clandestine plots to use this uncertainty to foster the ongoing crisis to truncate the election.
“We know that what is currently up in Nigeria is a calculated attempt by some group of people to ensure that Nigeria didn’t have a democratically elected president, a democratically elected candidate for the next election. So, we want to call on the government to yield to the cry of the people.
“If the government of today does not declare a national emergency to quickly look at the problem of fuel and fuel scarcities, the nation might be set ablaze. And, we as concerned citizens, don’t want that to happen.
“I would appeal to the federal government to declare an emergency in the economic sector. This means that every logistic, manpower and government will and must now start to tackle the current crisis and resolve it in the shortest positive possible time. Let the federal government mobilise men and resources to deal with the naira first as the situation to forestall a full-blown crisis and avoid biting the finger of regret later.
“Let us begin to use this opportunity or urge all citizens of our country to also become a situation. I believe that in the coming days, the government will rise up to the occasion to ensure that we have a safer economy, we will have a place that would help us run our business better”, he said.