Deadline: Traders, Residents Of Remote Areas Lament As New Naira Notes Remain Scarce

Ismaeel Uthman Kazeem Badmus

TRADERS and residents of remote part of the State of Osun have expressed worries over the January 31 deadline for the old naira notes, lamen ng that the redesigned currencies were s ll scarce in their various environments.

Some of the traders in Osogbo have been rejecting the old naira notes, just as some other people have also stopped collec ng them from Point of Sales operators.

Findings by OSUN DEFENDER revealed that residents of the state whose towns and communi es are without banks are finding it difficult to get the new naira notes and discard the old ones.

In Ikirun, Oyan, Okuku, Iree and Ila, it was gathered that the residents of the towns travel down to Osogbo to deposit their old naira notes in banks with the hope of ge ng the redesigned notes.

This is just as some residents paid POS operators to get the new naira notes from them, while some others go to filling sta ons to exchange the money.

However, some of them were disappointed as the banks insisted on not giving out the new naira notes through the counter, asking the customers to make use of the Automated Teller Machine (ATM).

The medium noted that the maximum amount of the new notes paid to each customer by some banks was N20,000 on Wednesday and Thursday in Osogbo.

Also, the ATM machines of the banks were not fully loaded with cash, a development that resulted to long queues.

A resident of Ikirun, Mr Waheed Akande, told the medium that he was le with just N100 as he was afraid to collect the old naira notes.

Akande said: “I am le with just N100; I will have to be transferring to people’s account if I need to pay them. I am afraid of collecting the old notes. The new naira notes are scarce in Ikirun. I was at a commercial bank in Osogbo on Wednesday to deposit the old notes with me. I thought I would get the new notes on the counter but the bankers insisted that I should make use of the ATM. When I got to the ATM, I met a long queue, so I could not wait. I used the N1000 with me to travel back to Ikirun.

“We don’t have bank here and the POS operators have a ached extra charge as a condi on of giving you new naira note.

A lot of people in Ikirun are going to Osogbo to deposit the old notes, while some pay charges to the POS operators to exchange the old notes with the new ones.”

Speaking with OSUN

DEFENDER, a resident of Ila, Mr Segun Babatunde, said the people in the town made use of micro finance bank to deposit the old notes.

Babatunde said: “People are taking the old notes to micro finance bank. But we are not given new notes. We will just pay into our accounts and be doing transfer from there.

“The POS operators in our areas do not even have the new notes and people are not collec ng the old notes from them.”

Some traders in Iree said they were s ll trading with the old notes because the new naira notes were not available.

A trader who spoke with the medium said: “We are s ll collec ng the old notes because the new notes are not available. We just make sure that the old notes are not much with us. Also, we have been encouraging people to do transfer. Some