PDP disowns Wike over suit challenging CBN

The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) disowned Rivers Governor Nyesom Wike on Thursday in response to his intention to join three northern All Progressives Congress (APC) governors in a suit challenging the Central Bank Nigeria (CBN) on the planned phasing out of the old currency notes of N200, N500 and N1,000 denominations.

The party said Wike, who is the leader of the aggrieved G-5 governors, was on his own, insisting that the leadership of the party has not authorised any of its members or stakeholders to be part of the suit.

Spokesman of the PDP presidential campaign council, Charles Aniagwu made this known in Asaba while briefing journalists on development in the polity.

According to Aniagwu, “any of the PDP governors who are saying that he supports APC, be rest assured that our party did not send them, noting that the PDP remained a united party without faction.

“So anybody who goes on air and asks that they should join him in an ill-fated suit, you know that they are co-travellers,” he added.

Aniagwu who is the Commissioner for Information in Delta State, described the suit by the governors of Kogi, Kaduna and Zamfara against the CBN which is aimed at retaining the old naira notes in circulation as anti-people.

He alleged that the objective of the suit by the APC governors was to protect the humongous money in old notes which they had starched away for the purpose of the fast-approaching general elections.

“They have starched away quantities of the old naira notes, that is why you find that three governors of the same political party that initiated the policy are the ones that decided to go to the Supreme Court with a view to short circuit the progress being made.

“They are shouting CBN but you wonder why they did not join the CBN or the banks in the suit because they know that if they do that, they cannot run to the Supreme Court.

“They went ahead to activate the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court with respect to the case between the FG and the states. They went back to court, they did not sue the elements, they did not sue the CBN, and they did not sue Emefiele.

“That tells you that APC is not only confused but that they know that they have lost this election,” he said.

Aniagwu said the PDP was not depending on money to win the election and urged the CBN to make the new notes accessible to Nigerians for them to carry out their transactions.

According to him, the PDP is solidly behind the CBN’s plan to phase out the old notes, even as he insisted that the party lauded President Muhammadu Buhari’s desire to give Nigerians a free, fair and credible election.

“All this one that they are fighting Buhari is because the man is not flowing with them along the line they are going, they want to intimidate him every day and see how he can support them and abandon the desire to give us free, fair and credible elections.

“And that is all we want Buhari to do for Nigerians, to allow a free, fair and credible election in order to leave behind a legacy for himself and a remarkable footprint in the sands of time.

“But APC does not want him to do that. It is paining them that Buhari wants to leave behind a free, fair and credible election. And we in the PDP support the president in his desire to have credible elections for Nigerians.

“We support him in the desire to deal with those who have taken our money in order to spend it illicitly. We urge the CBN to make sure that the banks have the redesigned naira notes and not to pump the old notes back into circulation.

“What Nigerians need now is to have the redesigned notes for them to carry out their businesses. Let APC go to court and ask the court to impress on the CBN to provide the new notes. Why are they trying to take us backwards if indeed they have good intentions?

“So, those old notes they have starched in the bullion van will be worthless as tissue paper,” he said.

(SUN)