Redesigned naira notes: Poor network pains Kogi residents more

By Dada Ahmed in Lokoja.

Residents of Lokoja and its environs in Kogi State on Tuesday said they felt the pains of the current new and old naira scarcity the more as they could not pay for goods and services sought through mobile payment due to poor network.

Some residents,who spoke with our Correspondent, described the twin problems- cash crunch and poor network-as ” biter pills very difficult for the Nigerian masses to swallow”.

” How can one explain a scenario where by you have money in the bank but you cannot withdraw due no fault of yours in the face of the demands of competing family financial commitments.

“You look for other ways ,such as resorting to pay for the services and goods, through mobile payment, to escape from the problem,again you are confronted with poor network, ” Hajia Karietu Ademoh, lamented.

Our Correspondent, who was at the popular Post office, Lokoja on Tuesday to pay for N1,000 worth of service offered him by a wrist watch seller was astonished to know he could not pay the man through mobile payment ,due to poor network.

Some customers such as Friday Nwachukwu, Abdullahi Haruna, Baba Mohammed and Zainab Yusuf,who spoke with our Correspondent at various banks in Lokoja on Tuesday, called on the Central Bank of Nigeia, CBN, to find timely lasting solution to the problem.

Zainab Yusuf, who told The Reporters that she brought a patient for admission at the Federal Medical Centre,FMC, Lokoja, disclosed that she had exausted all the money she had with her and left with no money to buy drugs and meet other monetary commitments for her patient.

“I got drug prescription and needed to buy it at pharmacy apartment but after purchasing the drugs, paying through mobile process became a big problem.

” I have to beg the pharmacist who said he pitied the condition of my patient, after narrating story of his health condition,so he allowed me to buy the drug on credit,” she recalled.

Yusuf joined voice with millions of Nigerians calling for the Federal government to do something needful and urgent too, to ease the excruciating pain of the people in the ongoing scarcity of naira.

Meanwhile, the social and economic problems that greeted the introduction of the redesigned naira notes in the state continued with bank premises depicting large crowd of customers struggling to withdraw the new naira notes.

Some said they have been going to banks for money withdrawal as early as 5 a.m with little success, adding that in many instances, they could only withdraw N 5,000 at the end long hours of queue, instead of the N 20,000 withdrawal limit.

The Reporters recalls that the President, Muhammadu Buhari, while receiving APC governors in Abuja recently, asked Nigerians to give him seven days to resolve the challenges facing them due to the naira redesigned naira notes.
In a report filed Vanguard newspaper,a
High Court of the Federal Capital Territory at Wuse Zone 2, on Monday, issued an order, to retrainPresident Muhammadu Buhari and the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, from extending or interfering with the February 10 deadline for the use of the old N200, N500 and N1000 banknotes.

The court issued the order, following an ex-parte application that was brought before it by four political parties.

The political parties behind the suit marked FCT/HC/CV/2234/2023, are the Action Alliance, AA, Action Peoples Party, APP, Allied Peoples Movement, APM, and the National Rescue Movement, NRM.

Specifically, the court, in the ruling that was delivered by Justice Eleojo Enenche, held; “An order of interim injunction is hereby made restraining the defendants whether by themselves, staff agents, officers, interfacing banks or whosoever not to suspend, stop, extend, vary or interfere with the extant termination date of use of the old N200, N500, and N1000 bank note being 10th day of February 2023, pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice.”

“An order is hereby made directing the Heads and Chief Executive Officers, Managing Directors and/or alter egos of the 4th to 30th Defendants to forthwith show cause as to why they shall not be arrested and prosecuted for the economic and financial sabotage of the Federal Republic of Nigeria by a there alleged act of hoarding, withholding, not paying or disbursing the new N200, N500 and N1000 bank notes, being the legal tender of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to their respective customers, despite supplies of each of such currency notes by the 2nd and 3rd Defendants, thereby leading to the present currency note in circulation”.

The court held that the interim orders would be for an initial period of seven days, even as it adjourned the matter till February 14 for a hearing.

Aside from President Buhari, the CBN and its Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, 27 commercial banks were cited as Respondents/Defendants in the suit.