Residents of Lagos State, Southwest Nigeria, are currently stranded over the scarcity of both the old and the new Naira notes.
Tuesday night, as people flocked to commercial banks like night vigil centres to use the ATMs, the trauma became even more chaotic.
As of 9.30am Nigerian time on Wednesday, News Central‘s journalists sighted several customers stranded in various banks at Adeola Odeku, Victoria Island, as they could not get cash to carry out transactions.
The shortage, which began over the weekend as people rushed to return outdated notes of N1,000, N500, and N200 before the official January 31 deadline, persisted yesterday as most ATMs in the Ikeja, Oshodi, Maryland, and Lagos Island areas ran out of cash.
A large crowd of customers continued to be a visible feature in all the banks across the State on Wednesday with most of them lamenting the pains they were going through. It was also tough getting money from Point of Sales (PoS) operators.
Because some of them were still having trouble agreeing on financial transfers, buyers and sellers, particularly in informal markets, were left stranded.
Even though it was a Monday, several banks were unable to help frantic consumers in person. However, the crucial PoS terminals that are a component of the payment system are unable to provide clients with the new naira notes.
The CBN claimed that although over N3 trillion was in circulation, over N1.9 trillion had already been collected.
Some Nigerians have taken to social media to express their frustrations following the recent developments of naira scarcity with banks e-platforms shutting down and networks hampering and stalling their transactions.
A certain King Kukute with the handle @Ade_Nurayn tweeted; “This is an APC led FG. Everyone under it must take the knocks for the fuel scarcity and the mess of new naira notes swap. But I’m here wondering if the VP is no longer the VP of Nigeria bc someone here feels he should be excluded from the flacks.”
“But what is this Naira scarcity. This guy in the baba was paid 50K in N20 notes,” a Twitter user with the handle @olvdele said.
@is_salsu tweeted; “I’m sorry to let you know that this scarcity of Naira cannot reduce vote buying. If this scarcity continues, we would experience the biggest vote buying ever. Poor people are struggling to get the small 2000 naira in their account to buy food and commute to work yet no money.”
Another twitter user with the handle @Godswill_ said; “Nigeria my beloved country where there is a scarcity of fuel for a reason we are not aware of and there’s also a scarcity of new Naira notes due to the redesign of the Naira our legislators prefer talking about the scarcity of the new naira note but are mute about fuel scarcity.”
The developments of the naira scarcity comes after a video emerged on Twitter with Nigerians spraying the new notes in a wedding party.
Three weeks before Nigeria’s Presidential elections, which experts believe would be keenly contested amongst Atiku Abubakar, Bola Tinubu, Peter Obi, and Rabi Kwankwaso; Nigeria is battling inflation, fuel scarcity, and insecurity in the country’s Northeast.
The trend of Nigeria’s inflation rate shifted in February 2022 as it increased to 15.7% from the 15.6% recorded in January. This implies an increase of 0.1% percentage points over the rate observed in January 2022.
This is in accordance with the National Bureau of Statistics‘ report on the consumer price index (NBS).
The rise in the cost of goods and services as a result of the nationwide gasoline shortage in February is thought to be the cause of Nigeria’s inflation rate hike.