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By Dada Ahmed in Lokoja.
Operators of Point of Sale, POS, in Lokoja and its environs in Kogi State, on Thursday, stopped operation as the on going scarcity of the redesigned naira heightened its effect on social and economic life of the people of the state and Nigeria in general.
The Reporters reports that the development came at a time that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele in a statement on Thursday in Abuja, directed commercial banks to start paying the redesigned naira notes to customers over the counter.
Emefiele said the new directive was aimed at alleviating the challenges confronting Nigerians in accessing the new notes, as well as reduce queues at the automated teller machines (ATMs) in the country.
The CBN, in a tweet, assured Nigerians of the availability of the newly-designed naira notes, adding that it was working with stakeholders to address the challenges associated with the new policy.
“CBN is committed to ensuring that the new naira notes reach the hands of Nigerians as soon as possible,” CBN tweeted.
Our Correspondent,who visited many POS outfits in Lokoja on Thursday reports that none of themsuch render services, leaving bank
Though most operators of POS, in their interview with our Correspondent, claimed that they stopped operation due to the lack of new naira from commercial banks, other sources linked the development to CBN’s collaboration with EFCC and ICPC in carrying out Banks’ Branch Spot-Checks on ATMs to avoid being caught.
Meanwhile, the effect of the scarcity of the new notes continued on Thursday with many people complaining of going to bed with “empty stomach” adding that they were in dire need of money to buy food and meet other essential social and economic activities to life meaningful.
At the state secretariat,The Reporters gathered that many workers could not come to office as they could not cash either the old or new notes to meet their transport fare.
They called on the Apex to go Banks to go beyond Branch Spot-Checks on ATMs to Spot-Checks by supplying the banks with more new naira notes to ease the pains of the people
