Cash Crunch: Bank Customers Lament In Kaduna 

Residents of Kaduna metropolis in Kaduna State have continued to lament scarcity of Naira notes despite the directive of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to commercial banks to start dispensing and receiving old Naira notes as legal tender in line with recent Supreme Court’s ruling.

Our correspondent, who visited some commercial banks in Kaduna metropolis on Tuesday, reports that some banks were dispensing old Naira notes at ATM stands while other banks were not.

It was further observed that inside banking halls, customers were not withdrawing much cash as some banks claimed they did not have enough cash to pay customers.

A customer at Zenith Bank in Kakuri area of Kaduna, Sam Adams, lamented that: “The bank only paid me N5,000 cash of new notes at the counter.”

Another customer at FCMB Sabon Tasha, who identified himself as Akor Adejo, claimed that the ATM was not dispensing Naira notes.

“The ATM is not working and I am here since 8am today to withdraw but nothing and the officials said they don’t have much cash,” he narrated.

However, many traders in Kaduna State were still rejecting the old Naira notes of N500 and N1,000, saying they were unaware of the CBN directive.

At Kaduna Central Market on Ahmadu Bello Way in the State capital city, some traders chose to accept old Naira notes of N500 and N1,000 while others declined the old notes from customers as they were not sure werherr the government would reverse the directive or not.

Meanwhile, a former lawmaker, who represented Kaduna Central in the Senate between 2015 and 2019, Senator Shehu Sani, while reacting to the development on his verified Facebook page on Tuesday, jocularly said: “Weather it’s old or new notes are not the issue; the issue is do you have money in the Bank?”