PREMIUM TIMES
It is no longer news that the Central Bank of Nigeria has botched the latest attempt at redesigning the nation’s currency. Nor, given what was known about the level of preparedness of the relevant institutions at the exercise’s onset, has the restiveness that has attended the banknotes swap come as a surprise. Still, the ferocity of the streets’ response, especially the wanton destruction of property that has taken place, shocks. Doubtless, the Central Bank’s incitement of bank depositors against commercial banks – claiming they were the ones hoarding the new banknotes – worsened these outcomes.
The breakdown of relations between the president and state governors, and recourse by sections of the latter cohort to litigation at the Supreme Court to compel CBN to reinstate the old banknotes as legal tender was just as unseemly. Unsurprisingly, concern around the near-term health of the Fourth Republic coalesced around hope that the meeting late last week of the…
