The apex Northern socio-cultural group, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has expressed happiness with the quick response by President Muhammadu Buhari on the adherence to the Supreme Court ruling on the old Naira notes, following its intervention.
ACF, however, said beyond just mere talks, the government should go a step further to ensure that there was full implementation by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) by ensuring availability of the Naira notes be it old or new ones to ease the suffering of the masses.
According to the Secretary General of the Forum, Aliyu Murtala, in response to an enquiry by LEADERSHIP, he said although the President may have spoken, the effect of his statement was yet to be felt as the Naira notes were yet to be available in banks as expected.
He said, “We are truly happy that the government has responded immediately to the call of the people which is triggered by the ACF and that is how to govern people.
“Government need to be sensitive and we hope that it’s not just mentioning with their mouth, they should also follow up and ensure action, so that at the end of the day, at least people will be beneficial of it.
“Government must take some steps because the small and medium scale sector of the economy has surely gone down, we don’t want the effect of that to lower our regional standard of living with people and lower our GDP.
“We want to call on the government to further ensure that there is implementation of the use of the old notes or production of adequate new notes to cover the cash transactions as part of the economy, so we are glad that government has taken steps.”