Some market people have begged the Central Bank of Nigeria to issue a directive mandating commercial banks to continue to accept old naira notes as many of them risk going bankrupt following the refusal of the banks to take the old notes they attempted to deposit.
Confusion rented the air on Monday when most of the banks in Lagos and other states rejected old notes. The crisis generated by the redesigning policy of the CBN has been compounded by the failure of the financial regulatory body to issue a new directive to the banks on old notes following the reversal of the February 10 deadline by the Supreme Court.
The CBN had set February 10 as deadline for the existence of old naira notes but the ruling of the Supreme Court restraining the Federal Government to implement the ultimatum had forced Nigerian to still keep the notes.
However, Nigerians have now been left frustrated as many of them who still have the old notes are gnashing their teeth as banks, filling stations and event market people are rejecting them.
Some market women who spoke with our correspondent on Monday at a branch of Guarantee Trust Bank in Lagos were seen crying and begging the banks to accept their money.
Eniola Adebola told our correspondent she is into the frozen food business and she had been collecting old notes from her customers “but when I got to the ‘cold room’ where I buy goods for restock they rejected my money, telling me that they also took old notes to the bank that were not accepted. This is why I ran to this bank to deposit what I have but unfortunately, they are telling me to go with it. So, what am I going to do? I am in trouble because without this money, it will be hard for me to continue doing my business and how are we going to survive.”
“We are begging the government to come to our aid,” Sunmisola Olasipe, another businesswoman who deals in groceries said. “If I had known banks would not accept old notes, I would have stopped collecting them from last weekend, but throughout Saturday and even Sunday most of the money I got from my customers were old notes but now I could not do a restock as those selling goods to us rejected the money saying they met the same problem at the bank. What are we going to do? We are begging the government not to send us to our early grave.”
Our correspondents reported that all of the banks at Agege, Abule-Egba, Mushin, Idimu and Iyana-Iba areas of Lagos State were not accepting old notes.
