The National Security Adviser has said that the recent policies introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will make it difficult to pay officers on the battlefields if not properly executed.
Major General Babagana Monguno (retd.), the National Security Adviser said this while appearing before the House Ad Hoc Committee on the CBN’s Cashless Policy and to extend the timeframe of the currency swap.
Rear Admiral Abubakar Mustapha, also corroborated his point, stating that military operations need to be carefully planned even in developed countries. He added that there is a need to consider soldiers who are deployed to rural places where they cannot access digital means of paying for their daily subsistence. He, therefore, urged the committee to sit and articulate better ways of actually addressing these issues.
Recall, the committee had recently grilled the Governor of the CBN, Godwin Emefiele, over the crisis caused by the redesign of some naira notes as well as the exchange of old naira notes with new ones.
Consequently, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, Chairman of INEC had met with the NSA and Emefiele over the matter and Emefiele and Yakubu had in turn met with the President, Muhammadu Buhari on the crisis.
Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, Majority Leader of the House and chairman of the committee said that the committee took in some of the responses which will guide them in writing the report to the House of Representatives.
He added, “By and large, I think it is only fair to say, whatever the case may be, that the position of the committee has not changed, even with the interface we had with the NSA, that the policy is unpopular, that the policy was untimely, that the policy did not take the benefit of wider consultations from various sectors and agencies of the government that were relevant with the subject matter.”
“Of course, we will continue to engage with them. Perhaps, we will call the Central Bank Governor once again to address this Committee based on other points and facts we have extracted from the NSA”