Commercial banks are yet to be dispensing old naira notes alongside the new ones despite a Supreme Court ruling stopping the Central Bank of Nigeria from banning the use of the old N200, N500 and N1000 notes.
Iwitnesslive can report that the development has forced the naira crisis to persist as Nigerians still struggle to access cash.
Hopes of relief from the cash crunch were raised when the Supreme Court last week Wednesday ordered the Federal Government to halt its naira redesigning policy. The apex court also stopped the executive from implementing the February 10 deadline set for the old naira notes to cease to be legal tender.
However, CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele is yet to issue any directive which will lead to compliance with the order of the Supreme Court as the banks are left confused about the new way to go regarding the old notes.
Many ATMs points visited by our correspondent on Sunday were not dispensing cash and some of the security guards on the ground in those commercial banks told Iwitnesslive that there were no naira notes and they had not started dispensing old notes because there was no directive yet from the CBN in that regard.
“No cash,” a guard at a branch of Union Bank in the Agege area of Lagos sharply told our correspondent. “Our ATMs haven’t been dispensing cash since Friday because we don’t have cash. Customers can come back, tomorrow (Monday) maybe there would have been money.”
When asked why the bank was yet to be dispensing old naira notes despite the court ruling which came on Wednesday, another guard said, “I heard from my ogas that we can’t put old money in the ATM because the CBN is yet to tell us to do that. We heard about what the court said but since the CBN is yet to say anything there is nothing we can do.”
Our correspondent learnt that Nigerians still access cash principally from the operators of Point of Sales who are collecting exorbitant charges.
It is also pertinent to note that most of the PoS operators were giving their customers old notes.
Anozike Jude, a PoS operator in Ikeja told one of our correspondents that he charges N700 on N5,000 and N1, 800 on N10,000.
“I think my own charges are still reasonable compared to other people. It is hard for us to get these notes; we buy them from market women, filling stations, bus drivers and conducted including Okada riders who are now increasing the prices every day and we have to buy them so that we can stay in business,” he said.
