By Dada Ahmed.
As bank customers in the country struggle to deposit their old naira notes, to beat the January 31 deadline for such activity, many of them have commended President Muhammadu Buhari and the Central Bank of Nigeia, CBN, for maintaining their ground on the deadline.
While reacting to reports of long queues of people waiting for hours for their turn to deposit old notes and get new ones, which necessitated public anger and opposition’s criticism, the President reiterated that the currency changes were targetted at people hoarding illicit funds and not the common man, adding that it had become necessary to prevent counterfeits, corruption, and terrorist funding.
This, he assured, would stabilize and strengthen the economy.
Those who spoke with our Correspondent at the various banks in Lokoja on Saturday described the stance of the federal government on the deadline as ” the right thing in the right direction.”
They argued that in spite of the challenges facing most Nigerians in getting the new notes, for once, the deadline would go down in the history of Nigeria as one policy that had woken up the consciousness of the people towards respecting time and be serious in whatever would add value to the development of the country.
Mr Amos Ajayi,who disclosed that he came to the Bank to deposit “just N5,000, the last tangible money on me”, said the suffering of the masses as far as the inconbiences relating to the deadline is concerned are necessary to check corruption in the country.
Amos said:””We do know that many politicians have piled up billions,if not trillions of naira to be used to induce voters to vote against their conscience in the forthcoming general electíons in Nigeria.
‘The positive side of the deadline is that, many of such politicians will not have much of the ill-gotten money to exchange for the new naira and will find it difficult to buy voters with money and as such, the corruption that usually characterise voting process in the reduce drastically.
“With this, the 2023 general elections will be far better than the previous exercises, in terms of credibility and acceptability and will boost the image of Nigerian political system in the eye of Nigerians and the international community.”
Meanwhile, the negative impact of the scarcity of the new naira of N200,N 500 and N 1,000 on the social and economic life of the residents continued on Saturday with many customers trooping to banks to deposit the old naira notes before the deadline.
Our Correspondent also reports that eyond series of maldramatic episodes stemming from the development, inability of people to have enough new naira notes to transact businesses remained visible a phenomenon, even on Sunday in Lokoja.
Many sellers of consumable and non consumable items have stopped accepting the old notes as mode of payment for goods and services in the face of difficult in accessing the new notes from the banks.
As a result, many residents told The Reporters that they could not purchase food stuffs stock their houses and engage in other transactions for weekend.
“We hope and pray that, January 31 deadline will soon be a thing of the past in this country so that we can have a breathing space to put our social and economic activities with enough new naira notes in our possession,”Alhaji Mukaila Aliyu,a business man said.