Families starve as hoarding worsens naira scarcity

The naira scarcity nightmare has continued to jolt many Nigerians since the first deadline of January 31 was announced by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele.

Hoarding of the new notes by banks,  as highlighted by security agencies, has further worsened the woes of customers.

Consequently many families living from hand to mouth are lamenting the ugly development, saying they cannot access the new notes.

Some of them who spoke to Daily Sun said feeding has become an uphill task.

Mrs Florence Agada, a petty trader laments: “I sell crayfish and pepper. My customers don’t have cash to pay and they keep transferring money but I don’t get alerts from my bank. Some of them show me the debit alert and I have to let them go on trust. At times, the money is reversed if it was a botched transactions but the person has already left with my goods.

“Now, I don’t have naira notes to buy what we need at home. The meat seller insists on cash, likewise the fish onion sellers. How do we survive?” She queried.

Mr Harcourt Iyi, a civil servant said he had to buy some new naira notes before his family could eat over the weekend.

“There was no single naira on me as at Saturday and we need to buy foodstfuff. I bought N10,000 for N1,500. It was from there we managed to cook and it wasn’t even enough. Many families are starving. I can tell you that for free”, he said.

The naira scarcity climaxed last week as banks’ Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) dried up, a situation exploited by Point of Sales (POS) operators to hike their charges.

For instance, many POS operators charge N4,000 for every N10,000 withdrawal. This translates to parting with N14,000 to get N10,000 new notes.

In some places, POS operators charge N300 for every N1,000 and poor Nigerians have been at the receiving end of the horror.

Checks by Daily Sun at the weekend showed that most ATMs did not dispense new naira notes as they had ‘system error’ on them.

However, despite CBN’s directive to pay customers N20,000 across the counter, banks visited on Friday paid between N1,000 and N5,000 in old, dirty and torn notes of N50, N20 and N10 denomination. The account clerks claimed they had run out of new notes and was awaiting to be restocked by the CBN.

Meanwhile, the CBN has expanded its cash swap programme to capture more far-flung settlements in rural areas across the country.

Staff of most departments have been drafted to villages to ensure the new notes get to rural dwellers.