Thirteen’ opposition political parties in Nigeria have said they will withdraw from the forthcoming general elections if the Central Bank of Nigeria extends the deadline for the naira swap.

Only the leader of one of the parties addressed the press and he did not list the remaining 12 parties that he said were part of their coalition.

The parties, under the aegis of Coalition for Political Parties, made this known at a press conference in Abuja on Monday.

The presidential and National Assembly election holds on 25 February while the governorship and state assembly elections will be conducted two weeks later on 11 March. The 18 registered political parties in the country are participating in the elections.

Three state governments – Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara – on Monday, instituted a suit against the federal government, seeking a restraining order to stop the full implementation of the naira redesign policy.

The coalition threatened to withdraw its members’ participation if the deadline for the currency swap was extended from 10 February to which it was shifted from the initial 31 January deadline.

“We hereby announce that at least 13 out of the 18 political parties in Nigeria will not be interested in the 2023 general elections and indeed we shall withdraw our participation from the electoral process if these currency policies are suspended or cancelled or if the deadline is further shifted,” the National Chairman of the Action Alliance (AA), Kenneth Udeze, who addressed the conference on behalf of the other parties, said.

Mr Udeze did not name the other parties in the coalition.

He commended President Muhammadu Buhari on the redesigning of the N200, N500 and N1,000 banknotes. The president had on Friday met with some governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC) during which he asked for seven days to make a major decision on the issue.

The parties flayed the Kogi, Zamfara and Kaduna state governments for instituting a suit at the Supreme Court to get an extension of the deadline for the validity of old notes. The three states instituted the case on Monday.