The outspoken Catholic priest and Chaplain of the Adoration Chaplaincy Enugu, Southeast Nigeria, Rev Fr Ejike Mbaka, has warned that the current naira crisis will mar the forthcoming general elections if the scarcity of the notes is not addressed and fixed immediately.
Mbaka who spoke during the First Sunday ministration at Adoration Ground lamented that President Muhammadu Buhari’s government and the All Progressives Congress (APC) didn’t implement the currency policy until now that the President’s tenure is coming to an end.
He accused them of trying to ruin the country.
Regretting that there was no justification for the unimaginable crisis and hardship the administration had caused to Nigeria’s economy and livelihoods of Nigerians, Fr Mbaka asked, “Do you think that if this situation continues, Nigerians will do election?”
“What is happening now is a coup d’état on democracy. But who will say it? To buy pure (sachet) water, will you do a cash transfer? Why mess up Nigeria because you people are going? Why didn’t you start it all the while? Eight years was enough for you people to stabilise it, wickedness. No job, no food, no house.”
Mbaka said, “People will suffer to make money and still suffer to take their money and there is still a country.
“I am giving both the President and the CBN governor a mandate from heaven, if they don’t want to react immediately and stop this self-imposed wicked suffering on the people, they will suffer.
“What rubbish; why do you multiply misery; people are sleeping in the bank to get their money; in which country has it ever happened? People are now selling money; not dollars; it is easier now to get dollars than to get naira
“Parents cannot have money to buy foodstuffs for their children; I don’t know how many will be alive by the time the so-called new currency will come out. The new currency is not even good; the design, very poor; the colour separation, rubbish.
“And everybody is talking election, election. Will dead men do the election? Men of God, you better open your mouths; I have come back from monastery to see my people in suffering, in agony; it is time to tell Pharoah, ‘let my people go.’”
He lamented that parents now spend their nights either at ATM galleries or in filling stations, adding, “You are killing people; what kidnappers are not doing; you are doing worse. People cannot access healthcare, by the time the doctor gets alert, the person is dead.”
He insisted that over 99 per cent of Nigeria’s population are ignorant of the new naira policy while insisting that it “is evil in the land”.
“If you are not ready with the new naira, why push out the old naira?”
Mbaka regretted that he returned to learn that more Nigerians had lost their jobs despite claims by the government that it had created jobs.
“The present government, I want to ask you, change, or you people will cry. What you are inviting, you cannot face it.
“The Hausas are crying; the Fulanis are crying; the Yorubas are crying; the Igbos are crying; the Niger Delta people are crying; the Middle Belt are crying, who are you now leading?” he asked.
