With three days to the 2023 general elections, Nigerians are approaching the crucial political event with dealing with economic crisis which have negatively impacted their everyday lives.
Nigerians are heading towards the polls, many will say with hardship, pain and difficulty no thanks to the action or inaction of the federal government through the naira redesign policy and the central bank that has led to business collapse and the citizens feeling frustrated.
The policy which has created chaos in the country due to viscosity of the new notes and the aspiration of the old banknotes have mopped up the old notes as ordered by the CBN as depositors can hardly access their funds which can only be obtained in the new notes that are scarce even in the banking system.
Investment strategist, Afriinvest Ltd, Temitope Omosuyi says it’s very clear that the policy has really imparted people negatively going by what can be seen.
It is becoming very tough for informal sectors to function adequately. It is a very tough time for Nigerians and as a matter of fact it is quite clear that the policy is not focusing on inflation among other objectives that were stated prior to President Muhammadu Buhari’s speech.
Mr Omosuyi noted that the president’s speech stated clearly that the policy is focusing on vote buying however, it is quite clear that some of the objective of these policies may not be achieved as a matter of fact, it would achieve the opposite.
“If you needed to give people 5 000 naira to vote for a political party but because cash is now becoming extremely valuable, a 2000 naira, 1 000 in remote area, rural areas will do a lot. It would significantly influence who people will vote for.
“On the path of inflation, the recent number of inflation in Nigeria went up to 21.8 percent which is quite disturbing because prior to January figure, we thought that by now inflation would have been on a downward Trend because it actually started in December where we saw a bit of deceleration.
“Again, this policy is also creating some form of disruption even to the financial system. The financial system is very critical to economic activities. This will greatly impact GDP.
“Framers are going through a lot at the moment as most of them reside in farms where there are no banks, so they live on cash.
“If agriculture sector that accounts for about 25 percent of the economy is going to decline on the back of this policy, it invariably means that the GDP for Q1 will be negatively and severely impacted.
“The same goes for transportation and so on, not also forgetting the forex market.
“If the non-oil export sector is negatively impacted as a result of this current policy, it means trade balance will be severely impacted and these affects foreign Reserve. This will also have an impact on FX markets” he added.
