By Babajide Komolafe, Fortune Ayanfeoluwa and Samuel Oyadongha Johnbosco Agbakwuru, LAGOS
Notwithstanding the High Court request broadening the cutoff time for the old naira notes till Wednesday this week, banks yesterday quit tolerating the notes even as Nigerians keep on spending extended periods in lines to get to the new naira notes.
The High Court of Nigeria, last Wednesday entered an interval request against the National Bank of Nigeria, CBN prohibiting the pinnacle bank from proceeding the February tenth cutoff time for the finish of purpose of the old N200, N500, N1,000 notes.
Buhari, Emefiele meet again in Aso Rock
Once more, President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday met with the CBN lead representative, Godwin Emefiele, at the Official Manor Abuja.
The CBN lead representative, who was seeing the President secretly for the third time since the money emergency raised the nation over, didn’t address columnists as he left the manor
The justification for the visit was not known, as at the hour of recording this report, it was nonetheless, accepted to be in association with tracking down answer for the money emergency.
Vanguard examination uncovered that banks yesterday didn’t acknowledge the old naira notes from clients. Further examinations showed that a portion of the banks sent messages to their clients, particularly PoS specialists, saying they ought to quit tolerating the old naira notes.
A level 1 bank official who addressed Vanguard on state of secrecy said: “We are not tolerating the old notes in our branches. The main branches that can gather the old notes are the huge branches assigned as centers.”
A PoS administrator, known as Mrs. Emmanuel, told Vanguard, “My bank advised us to quit tolerating the old notes, adding that they won’t gather it from us once more.”
Another PoS administrator said: “My bank sent SMS to us that it has quit tolerating old naira notes. What do we do now that the new notes are scant?”
The majority of the banks anyway neglected to affirm that the branches were authoritatively coordinated to quit tolerating the old notes.
Yet, talking on state of namelessness, a bank official because of Vanguard enquiries said: “I’m not mindful that any bank is tolerating the old notes as there’s been no refreshing mandate from the CBN further to the Feb 10 cutoff time. This is a conviction please, not addressing the perspectives on the bank(s).”
Lines for new notes endure at ATMs
In the mean time, the far reaching lines to get to new naira notes endured at the couple of ATMs administering cash.
Vanguard’s examination showed that a great deal of bank offices in Lagos didn’t open to clients and their ATMs likewise didn’t administer cash.
For instance, the vast majority of the banks in the Agbara area of Lagos were closed yesterday with clients abandoned.
A bank client who called Vanguard from Agbara regretted that they left their homes right on time to get cash from the bank, however regrettably, the banks shut down exercises.