The Redesigned (New) Naira Notes and It's Effect on the Citizens

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The Governor of CBN (Central Bank of Nigeria), Nigeria which is responsible for the printing and circulation of naira notes which is the legal tender of Nigeria, Mr Godwin Emiefele announced the change in design of some of the naira notes, #200, #500 and #1000. In his view, the above notes was in massive production but weren't in circulation amongst the people, hence causing these notes to loose so much value.

In my view as a civilian, the sector responsible for this are the top caucus politicians who have these notes delivered to them and starched in a place away from being traceable and being seen by pressmen or public eyes. The new naira became a legal tender on December 15, 2022, after it was unveiled by President Muhammadu Buhari on November 23, 2022.

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With this, all old notes of the same category were to cease being a legal tender from the 31st of January, 2023. All banks in the country were instructed to operate during the weekend just to ensure that everyone could deposit the old cash. The massive turnup by fellow Nigerians made me understand the view of the governor. "An economy without a circulation of it's legal tender makes its citizen poor".

THE DEADLINE
On the 30th of January, the CBN announced about the extension of use of the old naira notes to 10th of February. This was a great idea until all the banks where asked to stop making withdrawals over the counter and to not dispense the old notes as well. This is a case of putting in your money into the bank and being unable to make any withdrawals. The use of mobile wallets, banking apps and mobile banks were highly encouraged in carrying out transactions.

Since this week, the circulation of these new notes has been really poor by firstly placing limits on cards of citizens to #20,000 which has been recently reduced to #10,000 with most withdrawal machines releasing notes in little bits. This has resulted in a massive queue at ATMs all over the world. Dispensing of cash has become so low with banks claiming that they do not have enough cash to go round their customers.

Picture was taken at bank premises with my Redmi10c phone

Being an eye witness of the various uproar at the bank ATM, with customers fighting, dragging and struggling just to be able to get cash for their daily feedings. Some families have been left stranded and frustrated as they are unable to feed due to the lack of cash. This has also resulted in several dramas by the citizens from stripping at the bank, to climbing bank counters and crying all over the place. Most banks have had their properties vandalized by citizens in a bid to have access to cash. Most of the citizens belief that this shortage is due to banks paying the politicians first as this the 2023 elections come closer with ongoing campaigns, especially to those who have to pay for a huge crowd turnup which their suspicions may not be far from the truth.

Point of sales agents (POS) have taken an advantage of the issue to extravagantly increase charges of their services especially withdrawal which has discouraged alot of customers massively, from their view, getting cash from banks is as difficult to us as it is to them.

The reason this is more problematic is because the use of mobile banking is not generally accepted by the citizens. The banking network has been so terrible disabling transactions and making the citizens more frustrated in a case where you are debited while the transactor is yet to be credited which could linger for days.

Also most, of the aged who are in the market places are yet to understand how the use of online transaction works and no one is ready to sensitize them. Payment with cards should be that which should be allowed or enforced on any business organizations, large or small scale. Speaking on the matter, the President, Mohammadu Buhari had promised that things would return to normal in about a week. And we really hope it does.
We can't have money and still be unable to have access to it. We only pray that the financial state of the country is restored and everything returns to normal.

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