Residents of Bauchi Metropolis have called on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to prevail on Commercial Banks to pay only new naira notes and stock Automated Teller Machines (ATM) in the state.
Some of the residents that spoke to our Correspondent on Monday in Bauchi, lauded the FG and urged CBN to make sure banks made available new naira notes to customers.
Mr Idris Gidado, residents of Bauchi lamented that the commercial banks were not paying the new naira notes at the canter.
“I don’t know if the Banks are hoarding the new naira notes, I saw them given customers old naira notes instead of the new naira.
“But the ATMs are paying new notes, I want to call on the CBN to monitor banks and make sure they pay new naira notes,” he said.
Another resident, Aliyu Zarami commended the federal government for extension of the deadline to Feb. 10 February.
He urged the apex Bank to sanction banks or agents found violating any rule or directive of issuance of new Notes.
Hajiya Nafisa Mohammed lauded the extension and said it would reduce tension and afford the people the opportunity to deposit their old notes and have new ones for transactions.
“The Banks should do something about the long queue of depositors of the old naira notes,” she said.
A cleric, Ustaz Saminu Ahmed also commended FG over extension of the CBN dateline.
“But the rural communities need more than one month, the date should be extended to two months to enable those in the grassroots to swap their monies,” he said.
Meanwhile, Dr Abdulkadir Jibrin, Director Medical Services of CBN who is leading monitoring said they are on spot check of Banks and agents to ensure strict compliance of money swap and deposits.
“Inspites the additional days, before you say ‘Jack’, those additional days would be over and you find yourself in the same situation requesting for additional days.
“Therefore I encourage people to hasten in depositing their old naira notes before February 10, 2023.,”he said.
Dr Jibrim advised the public to lodge any anomalies by the commercial banks to CBN for redress.