Bandits show new naira notes, pundits sue bankers

Some security experts have said that the Central Bank’s aim with the new redesign of the naira notes may have been foiled following a viral video showing an infamous bandit queen, Kachalla Baleri, and his gang members showing off new naira notes, allegedly from a ransom of N10 million received from relatives. of abductees, according to some defense blogs.

This is because they added the possibility of some bankers conspiring with the bandits.

In the viral video our correspondents saw on Thursday, Baleri and his gang members, speaking Hausa, could be seen wearing the new notes.

Posting the video on Thursday morning, a defense blogger with the Twitter handle @Edrees4P tweeted, “Short video clip of a terrorist leader, Baleri, showing new naira notes and claiming he has more than enough to buy more guns.”

Also, @DefenseTimesNG tweeted, “Scarcity of Naira: Notorious bandit leader Kachalla Baleri releases video clip featuring new naira notes he received from N10 million ransom in denominations of N200 and N1000,” after posting a photo of Baleri.

In the video, Baleri was seen next to some armed men carrying N1,000 and N200 bills.

Speaking in Hausa, the bandit queen, who claimed to have used some of the new notes to buy ammunition, said that only Allah knows how many new naira notes he has bagged.

Baleri said, ‘They have redesigned the naira, poor innocent people don’t even know about it. Some don’t even own up to N10,000. He has to get up early in the morning to go to cure. What about those who have millions in the cities? See, it’s between them. The money they say people are changing, we who are in the bush are changing it, some people in the cities haven’t even received it.

“But you see, the people they call terrorists have the money in their hands. This is the new N1,000 note; this is the new N200 note. We’re just showing them a little bit of what we’ve got. We have enough bags of the new money and only Allah knows how many new banknotes we have.”

Meanwhile, a backing voice could be heard saying “I have N10m at home.”

Meanwhile, our correspondents were unable to get comment from the Department of State Security or Defense Headquarters, as questions sent to their spokespersons on Thursday went unanswered at the time of writing.

Commenting on the development, a security expert, Timothy Avele, who spoke to one of our correspondents on Thursday, said: “The terrorists may have received the new naira notes from relatives of kidnapped victims. This could partially defeat the purpose of redesigning the currency in the first place.

“The truth is that while the policy is generally good, there is poor coordination and implementation. Many key stakeholders were not caught up hence the hiccups experienced in almost the entire country to get the new naira to the citizens.”

Another security expert, Patrick Agambu, said: “Since the terrorists, as seen in the video, are now in possession of the new banknotes, it shows that they got them from some of the bankers they are dealing with and may have exchanged old banknotes. with them for the new.”

The PUNCH reports that Kachalla was one of 19 bandits/terrorists declared wanted by Defense Headquarters in November 2022.

The military high command also placed a bounty of N5m on each of them to encourage Nigerians to offer information that could lead to their arrest.