Naira Crisis: Aisha Buhari deletes her fake CBN post on Instagram

Nigeria’s first lady, Aisha Buhari, has pulled down an Instagram post of a statement purportedly issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to reintroduce the old N200, N500 and N1,000 bank notes as legal tender.

Mrs Buhari deleted the fake post within one hour of sharing it via her verified Instagram handle, @aishambuhari, on Tuesday.

The post which appeared on Mrs Buhari’s Instagram timeline at about 10.39 a.m. on Tuesday was liked by 1,971 of her Instagram followers within 42 minutes.

But it was not too long after Mrs Buhari shared the poorly written statement that it was dubbed fake across social media platforms.

The statement was characterised by punctuation and grammatical blunders as well as dangling phrases and incomplete sentences.

The CBN has also denied issuing the statement purportedly signed by the bank’s Director of Corporate Communication, Osita Nwanisobi.

PLEASE BE WARY OF FAKE NEWS! pic.twitter.com/EZc6ygua3u

— Central Bank of Nigeria (@cenbank) February 21, 2023

Mrs Buhari deleted her post shortly after the CBN denounced the document as fake.

But she has yet to apologise as of the time of filing this report for sharing the misleading information

In the fake statement shared by Mrs Buhari, the CBN said it was aware of “the current and unpleasant situation happening in Nigeria” as a result of the naira redesign policy.

It suggested that the bank decided to extend the validity of the old N200, N500 and N1000 notes after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday.

The old notes, according to the discredited statement, would circulate for 70 days up to 20 May.

The CBN has had to deny similar fake news in a bedlam of confusion and chaos that has resulted from the implementation of the controversial naira redesign policy.

Mrs Buhari’s eagerness to join the bandwagon of social media users who shared the statements could be indicative of her subtle opposition to the naira redesign policy that has inflicted pain on millions of Nigerians for weeks.

On 1 February, the first lady shared a clip from an interview granted Channels Television by Governor Nasir El-Rufai attributing the controversial policy to members of President Muhammadu Buhari’s cabal working towards the defeat of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the upcoming elections.

Mr El-Rufai’s claim echoed Mrs Buhari’s famous statement during her husband’s first time in office that members of the president’s cabal had hijacked the government.

The withdrawal of the old notes resulting in biting cash crunch has brought untold hardship on Nigerians who are scrambling for the limited supply of the newly redesigned notes introduced late last year.

President Buhari had in a broadcast last Thursday restored the validity of the N200 notes but insisted that the N500 and N1000 notes had ceased to be legal tender.

Mr Buhari’s directive violated an 8 February order of the Supreme Court directing the continued use of all the old notes till when it would conduct a hearing on the matter.

The case comes up in court on Wednesday.