Benue State governor Samuel Ortom has appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari and the Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele to consider extending the swapping of old naira notes for newly redesigned notes to June in the interest of the rural populace who are already in distress.
Ortom who made the appeal in Makurdi said he is behind the National Assembly in their quest to give Nigerians more time to exchange the old naira notes adding that the 10 days extension is grossly inadequate because the commercial banks does not have the new notes to dispense to customers.
“I want to use this opportunity to call on Mr. President to use his good office to advise the CBN governor to give Nigerians more time, people are in distress especially the rural populace, some people with only N1,000 even slept on queue just to get new notes, this is adding more pain to the already suffering Nigerians.
“From now to June, the CBN will have enough time to print the new currency enough to go round the nooks and crannies of Nigeria,” Ortom added.
Our correspondent who went round to monitor some banks and markets in Makurdi, the Benue State capital observed that even though the CBN announced 10 days extension ATMs are filled with long queues and most shops and business are not selling because they are refusing to collect old naira notes.
One of the customers who was seen on a queue at the ATM in one of the banks, Terstea Asom, said, he had been coming to the bank for three days but unable to get the new notes.
“What I heard is that CBN has given the new naira notes to the super agents who are managers of POS and they are selling the new notes to their agents who are in turn exploiting the general public.
“You can imagine that if you are collecting from PoS they are taking 10 percent for every transaction, so after this suffering this people expect us to go and stand in the sun to vote for them?” he said.
