Anambra state chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), has backed the proposed nationwide strike by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).
The strike is to protest the effects of the current federal government’s cashless policy, redesign of the naira, and currency swap which the association believes have caused more hardship for common Nigerians.
The NLC has threatened to start a nationwide strike and barricade the Central Bank of Nigeria’s offices by Monday of next week if the apex bank does not grant civil servants access to their funds in various commercial banks so they can pay their transportation costs to their places of employment and also buy food to feed their families.
While speaking during a two-day Retreat organized for Anglican Church Bishops and Priests, by the Anglican Diocese on the Niger at the All Saints’ Cathedral, Onitsha, on Thursday, Anambra state Chairman of CAN, Venerable Joseph Nweke said Anambra CAN is solidly behind the proposed nationwide strike.
According to the Venerable who is the Archdeacon of Onitsha Inland Town Archdeaconry, the negative effects of the poorly executed two policies of cashless economy and naira swap have turned to become a huge embarrassment to the entire Nigerians.
He said, “The Supreme Court has since ordered CBN to release the old naira notes they confiscated from Nigerians since they are not able to give us the redesigned naira notes but it appears they have disobeyed the court order”.
“African and Western countries that are practicing cashless economy usually build infrastructures first of all upon which the system would run smoothly but in the present policy on the cashless economy in Nigeria, the federal government did not consider infrastructures such as the system that will enhance free flow of cash through the internet”.
“Secondly, the federal government introduced the two policies of cashless economy and currency swap at the same time and non of them were properly arranged in such a way it will help the citizens. Currently, swap, as a policy is expected that government should print new naira notes so that if you bring your old naira notes, they will swap them with the new ones”.
“Rather, what they did in Nigeria is to persuade the citizens to surrender their old notes to the commercial banks and instead of swapping them straightaway, they confiscated the old notes without supplying the new ones, thereby throwing the masses into an unprecedented chaos till date”.
While commenting on the just concluded general elections, Venerable Nweke said the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), failed to implement the policies it put in place for the election.
He described the process INEC adopted as a highly dubious questionable process, which caused many Nigerians to doubt the validity of the results the electoral umpire announced.
He said, “INEC failed Nigerians woefully even when they collected huge amounts of monies running into billions of naira for a free and fair process. CAN Anambra state observe the elections in the state and most of our reports are indicting INEC and not even the politicians as was usually the case in the past”.
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