The National Assembly has been challenged to live up to its responsibilities in oversight and statutory functions to alleviate the excessive financial burden imposed on teeming masses of the people of Nigeria by the Central Bank of Nigeria and commercial banks.
The Deputy National Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, Hon. Setonji Koshoedo made the call in an interview with journalists in Abuja.
A former member of the House of Representatives, the main opposition party scribe decried the prevailing situation where the nation has maintained stoic silence over the continued fleecing of the masses by Nigerian banks through excessive and multiple charges on their personal and business accounts.
Koshoedo decried a situation where an account holder, under the watch of the CBN, had to pay three or more different charges on a single transaction.
He wondered why a customer had to pay transaction commission, Value Added Tax on that commission, telecommunication charges and still had to pay account maintenance fees at the end of every month.
Describing the situation as a rip off and a continual impoverishment of hard working Nigerians, he reiterated that such was obtainable only in Nigeria because the current executive and legislative arms of government were shirking in their responsibilities.
The situation, he noted, was the same with other service providers like the power distribution, telecommunications and other service providing companies that took the people for granted and impose multiple and unwarranted charges.
That, he said, would not have been possible if the National Assembly, a body he was once a part of, and the CBN had been alive to their responsibilities thereby putting Nigerians and their businesses under unnecessary economic pressure.
He implored Nigerians to wise up to the fraudulent practices by the concerned service provider companies, join hands with the Peoples Democratic Party to ensure its victory at the 2023 general elections so as to rescue them from the ruinous economic policies of the current government.
