By Dada Ahmed in Lokoja.
Many Bank managers in Lokoja, kogi State capital, north central Nigeria, have been thrown into fix as the new and old naira notes compete for supremacy in terms of scarcity.
A branch officer of one of the latest generation banks in the country, who wants to remain anonymous, disclosed this in a chat with our Correspondent in Lokoja on Tuesday while commenting on the scarcity of both notes.
He said that he had been receiving various telephone calls from the customers of his banks requesting his favour to secure them even the old notes, since the extension of January 31 deadline, the demand of which he could not meet.
“Even, my father has been calling me to help him get either the new or old naira notes, but unfortunately, I could not help him,”he said.
The senior officer said he had to abandon his office for some time on Tuesday as the hit of the calls from customers and those besieging his office became unbearable for him to contain.
According to him, the apex bank had not released enough new naira notes to his bank to take care of the large volume of customers trooping to the bank with the hope of cashing the new naira.
Finding by Correspondent indicates that with the earlier January 31 deadline given by the federal government for people to deposit their old naira notes in exchange for the new old ones, many have complied.
This development,keen watchers of the current scarcity of currency in the country, argued sort of reducing the volume of old naira notes in circulation with the multiplier effects on social and economic activities of the people.
They note that the inability of banks to have enough new naira for customers and the fact that the banks are no more issuing old naira deposited to customers triggered the current cash crunch in the country.
They called on the Central Bank of Nigeria,CBN,to quicken the process of
releasing new naira notes banks, to ease the pains of customers.
Our Correspondent recalls that one of the first generation banks in Nigeria, located in Lokoja, on Tuesday, further limited the amount a customer can cash the new naira notes from N20,000 to N5,000 per day. This is to enable more customers açcess the new notes.
Authorities of many secondary schools in Lokoja have written to parents and guardians to pay school fees of their children and wards through mobile cash transfer, given the difficulty in cashing the new naira notes for payment.
Baptist High School, Lokoja,in one of such letters to parents, said:”Dear parents, please be reminded that school fees defaulters will not be allowed in school as from
Monday 6/2/23. Transfer to School account is
allowed.”
The school, however, stressed the need for parents to support such payment with authentic receipt.
However, the tension created by the refusal of market men and women to accept the old naira, prior to extension of the January 31 deadline, eased on Tuesday with many sellers of food stuffs and other products baccepting such currency from buyers, according to investigation by our correspondent.
Meanwhile, large crowd of customers continued to be a visible feature in all the banks our Correspondent visited in Lokoja on Tuesday with most of them lamenting their pains they were going through coming to bank to cash scarce new naira notes.
