The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre has said that the Central Bank of Nigeria’s plan to redesign 200, 500 and 1,000 naira notes is not an economic priority for the country, considering the current challenges facing the economy.

The Executive Director of CISLAC, Auwal Musa, made this known in a statement on Thursday, adding that there are more pressing needs that the CBN ought to attend to, to set the economy on the path of revival.

Musa added that Nigerians’ concerned reactions to the announcement was proof that the decision is a misplaced priority on the part of the CBN.

He said the CBN should be more concerned with protecting foreign exchange reserves from external outflows and making forex available to the ordinary citizens who genuinely and legitimately need it, adding that the huge blow to foreign direct investment was tantamount to the inability of the CBN to do its job effectively

He said, “Firstly, the CBN’s decision to redesign and reissue new 200, 500 and 1000 notes is not an economic priority and barely a solution to addressing Nigeria’s poor monetary policy challenges and growing economic woes.

“Especially at a time when the country is grappling with huge fiscal deficits, a free fall of the naira, soaring inflation rates, multiple forex rates and rising borrowing costs. The reasons for this decision seem no different from those given for the forex demand management strategy which resulted in a non-satisfactory conclusion as the artificially low exchange rate failed to be as reflective of the market as possible to improve supply, but this time it only threatens damning economic consequences for Nigerians.

“The public perception that this decision holds no value proposition for the economy, reiterates the tendency of the CBN to be distracted from fulfilling priority statutory obligations.

“Various comments and responses from concerned Nigerians, show that a large number of Nigerians are worried about the misplacement of priorities of the Apex Bank to make such a decision that comes with possibly huge logistics costs and avoidable dislocations to small businesses, most of whom are in the informal sector.”

The CISLAC boss added that CBN’s macro-economic policies had brought nothing but “untold hardship” on the country’s economy, consequently affecting Nigerians negatively.

He added that the apex bank had a lot to do in order to win back public trust and confidence.

“So far, the macro-economic and monetary policies of the CBN has brought untold hardship to the productive and service sectors of our nation’s economy with consequential negative effects on the lives of our citizens. The Apex Bank has floated multiple exchange rate regimes and has been accused of facilitating arbitrage between the parallel and official foreign exchange markets, providing huge financial patronage and extending forex-based favours to allies.

“Nigeria is grappling with the external pressures from the incapacity of the Central Bank of Nigeria to protect foreign exchange reserves from external outflows.

“The Apex Bank needs to do a lot to recover the confidence of the public by addressing its inability to ensure; Blockage of illicit financial flows  and checkmating the use of financial systems to fund terrorism by strengthening oversight of commercial banks used as conduits for corruption,” adding that “Foreign investors rely on authoritative indexes like the Global Terrorism Index and even economic indexes that include an evaluation of security and stability, to inform their investment decisions;

“Intensifying collaborations with relevant anti-corruption agencies to check dubious charges by some commercial banks, who keep shortchanging poor Nigerians whose reducing disposable income is further worsened by growing inflation costs and unemployment;