By Bukola Hameed
President Muhammadu Buhari has apologised for the impacts of his economic policies on Nigerians.
The president made the apology in his farewell broadcast to the nation on Sunday.
Buhari said some of his administration’s policies caused “temporary pain and suffering” to Nigerians.
The most recent of such policy was the implementation of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) naira redesign policy which was suspended on March 13.
The CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, had in October 2022 announced that the bank would redesign N200, N500 and N1,000 notes and discontinue the old ones.
The implementation of the policy, which caused scarcity of the naira notes nationwide, caused hardship, agony, humiliation, social uprising and deaths of Nigerians.
Banks and their Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) across the country were attacked by angry youths and other protesters.
However, on March 3, the Supreme Court extended the validity of the N200, N500, and N1,000 notes till Dec. 31, thereby restoring sanity into the various socio-economic activities in the country.
The president, however, said: ”In the course of revamping the economy, we made some difficult choices, most of which yielded the desired results.
“Some of the measures led to temporary pains and sufferings for which I sincerely apologised to my fellow countrymen, but the measures were taken for the overall good of the country.”
Buhari was elected Nigeria’s president in 2015, ending the 16-year rule of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
He was re-elected for a second term in 2019 and will hand over power to Bola Tinubu, the president-elect, on May 29.