THE vice presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Datti Baba-Ahmed, on Friday, February 17, said comments made by Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-rufai on the naira redesign policy, following the nationwide broadcast of the President Muhammadu Buhari are treasonable.
Recall that El-rufai, in a state broadcast on Thursday, February 16, faulted the President on his directive to re-introduce the old N200 banknote as part of measures to ease the cash crunch in the country, insisting the old N1, 000 and N500 were still legal tenders in his state and the naira redesign was aimed at scuttling the general elections to allow an interim government, to be led by a retired army General he declined to name.
But at a press conference in Abuja, on Friday, Datti said the governor’s comment amounted to treason and wondered why the Presidency is silent.
He argued that there was only one authority in Nigeria, which is the President, and wondered how a governor could counter the directive of the President, adding: “Anybody who commits this kind of indiscipline under our leadership, the full weight of the law should bear on him.
“We have been more than bewildered at the failures we have witnessed in the past few days. However, it is more of an act of treason, so to say, it is an act of treason. If an elected governor of a constituent part of a sovereign country will give direct instructions to the contrary of what is the exclusive preserve of the federal government.
“Why should, as a Commander-in-Chief, you give a clean executive constitutional order and a state governor goes out to say that you should continue to exchange those currencies? This is to say that there are two authorities in a country.”
