Naira Crisis: Aisha Buhari takes down her fake CBN Instagram post Aisha Buhari, the first lady of Nigeria, took down a post on Instagram...
Naira Crisis: Aisha Buhari takes down her fake CBN Instagram post
Aisha Buhari, the first lady of Nigeria, took down a post on Instagram that was a supposed statement from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to make the old N200, N500, and N1,000 bank notes legal again.
Mrs. Buhari deleted the fake post from her verified Instagram account, @aishambuhari, an hour after she shared it on Tuesday.
The post went up on Mrs. Buhari's Instagram page at 10:39 a.m. on Tuesday. Within 42 minutes, 1,971 of her Instagram followers liked it.
But it didn't take long for people on social media to call Mrs. Buhari's badly written statement fake after she posted it.
The statement was full of spelling and grammar mistakes, as well as phrases and sentences that didn't make sense.
The CBN has also denied putting out the statement that was said to be signed by Osita Nwanisobi, the bank's Director of Corporate Communication.
Mrs. Buhari quickly took down her post after the CBN said the document was fake.
But as of the time this report was written, she hadn't apologized for giving out the wrong information.
In the fake statement shared by Mrs. Buhari, the CBN said it knew about "the current and unpleasant situation happening in Nigeria" because of the naira redesign policy.
It said that the bank met with President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday and decided to keep the old N200, N500, and N1000 notes in circulation.
The discredited story said that the old notes would be used for 70 days, until May 20.
In the confusion and chaos caused by the implementation of the controversial naira redesign policy, the CBN has had to deny similar fake news.
Mrs. Buhari's eagerness to join the crowd of people on social media who shared the statements could be a sign that she is not happy with the naira redesign policy, which has hurt millions of Nigerians for weeks.
On February 1, the first lady shared a clip from an interview that Governor Nasir El-Rufai gave to Channels Television. In the interview, El-Rufai said that members of President Muhammadu Buhari's cabal were behind the controversial policy because they wanted to beat the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the upcoming elections.
Mr. El-claim Rufai's was similar to what Mrs. Buhari said during her husband's first term in office: that the president's inner circle had taken over the government.
Nigerians are having a hard time because the withdrawal of the old notes has caused a severe shortage of cash. People are scrambling to get the few newly redesigned notes that came out at the end of last year.
In a broadcast last Thursday, President Buhari said that the N200 notes were once again legal, but that the N500 and N1000 notes were no longer good money.
Mr. Buhari's order went against a Supreme Court order from February 8 that said all the old notes should still be used until the court could hold a hearing on the matter.
Wednesday is when the case will be heard in court.