The President, National Association of Nigerian Traders (NANTs) Mr Ken Ukaoha has said that the postponement of the commencement of the 2019 general elections has cost the country over N140 billion.
Ukaoha stated this in Abuja on Saturday while speaking with reporters, insisting that the postponement would affect the trading sector adversely.
Ukaoha also noted that the postponement would affect the economy adversely in terms of money that the government, political parties and ordinary Nigerians had already expended on logistics and otherwise.
Describing the postponement as appalling and unfortunate, Ukaoha said the development could make the nation become a laughing-stock in among comity of nations.
The NANTs president said: “I am not talking of the manufacturing sector, transporters and the farmers; even workers were asked not to go to work.
“We need to be adequately prepared for elections.
“The loss is monumental if you look at the economic consequences, essentially if you look at the trade, Nigeria depends so much on daily turning of fund through distribution and redistribution of goods and commodity.
“I am telling you that with this calculation I have just done here, we are losing nothing less than 140 billion naira, because all got this information so late.
“If you go round now you will see that the shops are close, so we are losing chunk of money just for this incident.
“We are not talking about the manufacturers and the industrialists because they have all sent their workers away to go and perform their civic duty.
“Farmers did not go to their farms because they want to exercise their franchise. If you do the computation your guess is as good as mine in terms of what the nation is losing, we should learn.”
