Jigawa State Governor Muhammad Badaru Abubakar has protested to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) about the continuous paucity of freshly designed Naira notes in commercial banks, claiming that some commercial banks receive as little as N2 million daily from the new currencies.
The Governor said this through the State Commissioner for Finance, Babangida Umar Gantsa, in response to the difficulties individuals are experiencing when depositing or withdrawing money.
He accused the CBN of withholding the redesigned Naira notes, causing residents undue hardship.
“We even spoke with bank managers and they confirmed that the CBN is not giving them enough money.
“One manager of a bank told us that the CBN gave him only N2million.
“In one particular ATM, I counted over 250 people, people are sleeping there and some are spending hours of their work just to withdraw money for their needs. The banks are not loading enough money in their ATMs because the CBN is also not giving them money.
“I think the CBN is not ready for this exercise. They should go back to the drawing board and do the needful to ease the suffering of the common man.”
Babangida added that, “even the naira swap and ten days extension announced by the CBN is going to be defeated.”
“Only ten local governments out of 27 in the State have functional banks.
“The rural communities are in untold hardship as they lack access to any financial institution for exchanging their old note with new ones” he said.