-By Austen Akhagbeme:

That the Naira redesign policy of the Buhari regime has become a nightmare since October last year when it was first announced is no longer in doubt.

This laudable monetary policy, ordinarily speaking, could have gone down in history as one of President Buhari’s masterstrokes in bringing back an ailing and complex economy like ours.

But instead of a monetary policy tool, the taciturn General has chosen, against all odds, to use the cash policy as a means to deal with a perceived political enemy and their amorphous clan.

And now, the intended consequences are taking their toll on the unintended targets, causing sorrow, tears and blood among the hapless masses.

This is quite unnecessary, unwarranted and undesirable, especially after eight years of rudderlessness in the fight against corruption by a regime that rode on the back of the promise to fight corruption to power.

The short-sightedness in the planning and execution of the cash policy following the hardships that it unleashed on the unsuspecting voting public a few months before a crucial general election, has rendered the exercise counter-productive.

If the intention of the Buhari regime was as noble as they would want us to believe, the outcome as of today is showing that a citizen that is denied access to his money and thus becomes angry and hungry is easily influenced by cash-wielding corrupt politicians seeking desperately for votes on election Day, than otherwise.

And because the new Naira notes have been hijacked by these same people (through their cronies at the commercial Banks) who the policy was aimed to checkmate, one wonders if the ill-fated cash policy with the attendant asphyxiating backlash was the right tool to deliver a credible election to Nigerians instead of the instrumentality of the law.

Nigeria has never lacked good policies since its independence; the bane has always been the intention, thrust and implementation. The present agony and pain of this policy far outweigh its mouthed intentions no matter how noble and altruistic they are. Let Buhari and his controversial apex banker reconsider.