A Bauchi State University don, Dr Yusuf Musa Yahaya, has berated the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for extending the deadline from 31st January to 10th February, 2023.
Yahaya argued that the move would continue to subject the ordinary Nigerian to untold hardship.
He said, “The extension of the deadline is not favourable to the economy, particularly looking at the current circumstance created by the change of currency and the deadline for the use of the old notes.”
Yahaya who heads the Political Science Department of the Bauchi State University, Yuli Campus stated that “Scarcity has already been created, people are suffering. You can go to an ATM without cash, you can go to PoS, you don’t have new naira notes, if you go to banks, they don’t attend to customers”.
He told journalists in Bauchi yesterday that the 31st January deadline should have been maintained so that normalcy can return to the economy.
The varsity don lamented that the 10-day extension would bring more hardship to the people across the country.
“Once the deadline is maintained, it means that CBN has to pump into the economy to allow for speedy circulation of the currency, and things would return to normalcy. The target is not even circulation of money, but a cashless policy of the CBN that would strengthen the economy”, Yahaya said.
He regretted the pressure from the political class who came with unnecessary excuses for themselves which, according to him, forced the Central Bank to extend the January 31 deadline.
He therefore advised the Central Bank that so far it is exercising its constitutional right and should stick to the laws governing it, adding “Laws are meant to be respected and maintained, CBN should look at the untold hardships this policy is causing to people at the grassroots.”
The head of Economics Department of the same university, Dr Umar Bala said however that the extension of 31st January deadline is okayed because as he puts it, “It would afford more rural dwellers the opportunity to key into the banking system”.
Dr. Umar Bala said the digital economy of cashless policy has to a significant aspect also curbed the armed robbery, especially between the North and Southern part of the country, saying gone are the days when robbers are having field days on those regional routes.
The university lecturer therefore advised the central bank to exert more efforts on sensitization on whichever policy they would want to introduce in the system, stressing that hundreds of thousands of villagers are still ignorant about the cashless policy of the apex bank.
He advised the people to deposit their money in the banks as against keeping them at their homes thereby making the money valueless.
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