An unnamed governor got N500 million worth of new naira notes from a bank, according to Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State.

In an interview with BBC Hausa Service, El-Rufai said politicians who are targets of the naira redesign policy already have their way.

“It is not wrong to change currencies, every country do but you can not change it at this season of elections and give this limited time, where in this world that ever happened?”

“Politicians and big businessmen who are targeted by the policy have their ways of accessing the new notes, some of them own the banks, but what of poor, petty traders?

“All APC governors met on the issue, we saw how people suffer, we support the change of currency but time should be extended to months.

“We said let CBN, banks managers and we governors sat and discussed the issue, let’s work together and have a proper plan on how to go about it, we should have plans to follow people to their homes, villages and change the notes for them but not forcing them to go to banks which take some of them a hundreds kilometers.

“I tell you this change does not affect politicians, they have their money and they are prepared, they know how to access the new notes, it is poor don’t have ways, even yesterday we were told one of the governors was given 500 millions of the new notes.”

El-Rufai’s thought aligns with that of Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso, who also said the policy would not affect the rich.