Buhari meets Tinubu in Aso Rock as naira crisis festers

The meeting, held on the morning of Wednesday, February 15, 2023, comes five days after Buhari summoned Tinubu for a meeting on Friday evening.

Senior presidency sources told The Punch that the Wednesday engagement with the APC presidential torchbearer was responsible for the President's delayed arrival to chair this week’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting.

Another source also told the paper that Buhari delayed his arrival for the meeting to monitor the outcome of the Supreme Court proceedings involving the Federal Government, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and some state governments regarding the currency swap policy.

Although the reasons for the meeting have not been made public, speculations are rife that it's likely connected with the ongoing naira crisis and APC's campaign ahead of the upcoming presidential election on February 25, 2023.

Pulse reports that protests erupted in several parts of the country on Wednesday as frustrated Nigerians trooped to the streets to expressed their grievances over the CBN directive that commercial banks should stop accepting the old N1,000, N500, and N200 notes.

Reports say one person was shot dead in Edo State by security operatives who were trying to prevent protesters from breaking into a CBN office.

Also, protesters in Delta State destroyed several Automated Teller Machine (ATM) galleries and set fire to a branch of Access Bank while expressing anger over the cash crunch.