Former President Muhammadu Buhari has justified why the naira redesign policy was introduced during the 2023 general election period.
Buhari made this revelation in his first interview since leaving office, which aired on Monday night on the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA).
According to him, the naira redesign policy was intended to show Nigerians that there is no shortcut to power.
Recall that the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, under Governor Godwin Emefiele, implemented the naira redesign policy, which forced many Nigerians into hardship due to the scarcity of currency.
Buhari said, “The motivation is to try and make Nigerians believe that there is no shortcut to successful leadership in the sense that service is not easy, as I said after three attempts and ending up in the Supreme Court.
“Nigeria, believe it or not, we’re an underdeveloped country. We get so impressed by our material things and sometimes ruthlessly don’t care how we make the money. You should be rich, have a fantastic house, flashy cars, and go overseas regularly.
“A lot of Nigerians will say that is very stupid. They would rather have the quickest or fastest way of getting there, and the only way of doing it is to try to accumulate some money, to have a lot of money, and see how you can compromise so many people and maybe institutions and get what you wanted to get.
“But I think patriotism if you sympathize with your own people, ordinary Nigerians, and how they struggle to maintain their households, how they struggle to keep their children in school, to make sure they don’t suffer, those who are sensible enough realise it is not easy and it is a difficult way of doing things.
“Do they have the courage to take the difficult way of doing things and make sure that they bring up their children well by suffering themselves?” he said.
