Former Education Minister Oby Ezekwesili, faulted the naira redesign policy on Sunday, claiming that the policy has been compromised.
Ezekwesili accused the political class of hijacking the processes and workings of the monetary authorities and using them for their political gains.
She made her position known during her guest appearance on Channels Television’s “The 2023 Verdict” programme.
“The reason Africa’s democracy was in a parlour state and hijacked by the supply side by the politicians is that you have an electorate that acts as if they are not interested,” she said, explaining the political class’s grip on a system allowed by the masses.
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“The minds of the electorate are like somehow, someday a messiah would just come and things would be fine.
“They have failed to exert the kind of pressure that is necessary to determine the quality of a democratic outcome. So what we have is an electorate that has no power to influence political outcomes to their own benefit.
“Now people are connecting their lives to the failures of the supply side, and that is very important,” she noted.
The former Vice President at the World Bank made an analogy of how much influence the political class, irrespective of their political parties, has had on the minds of the electorate, saying that even with positive changes in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), money remained a very powerful weapon to detect outcomes on election days.
“I said many years ago that the monetary policy was compromised because it was evident that it was being run from the villa,” she said when asked about what she would have done differently if she were to be in the president’s shoes.
“I find it very intriguing that people just don’t follow the things that have been said…
“Frankly, I have no words for President Buhari because I am not one of those Nigerians with any expectations from him. All I want to see him do is make sure that the elections happen and a new government gets elected by Nigerian citizens who want a society that functions,” she added.
“The country is in a state of higher-end fragility,” she said to describe the situation of the country, explaining that the country is close to failing.
“With this level of fragility, you want to push it further?” she asked.
She faulted many of the policy solutions of the CBN, condemning the closely married relationship between the apex bank and the presidency—a relationship she accused of coming out with policies that were not sufficiently “data-driven.”
