There is palpable fear and heightened anxiety among Rivers Residents over next week’s CBN deadline (January 31st) for the old naira notes following the obvious scarcity of the new naira notes.
Visits by The Guardian to most of the banks along Ikwerre Road, Aba road, University of PortHarcourt and Rivers State University in the city capital show that the new notes are still very scarce.
The findings show that the front desk officers were not paying the new notes to customers no matter how much the customer was withdrawing.
When The Reporter along with other customers at the UBA in Uniport requested the new notes from front desk officers/cashiers, they were told that only the ATMs were paying the new notes, on arrival at the ATM, the machines were not dispensing.
Upon inquiry, the security men at the premises said, the earlier loaded cash had finished.
At the UBA along Ikwere road, customers who queued up for cash withdrawals of new notes were sighted helpless as no one attended to them, only those who requested for withdrawal of old notes were attended to.
In an interview, a front desk officer at the bank who does not want her name mentioned, said, that there is a limited supply of the new notes adding that customers can only get it through the ATMS.
A student at Rivers State University, Miss Chika Monye said, after queueing for two hours at the ATM, she was only able to get N10,000 of the N1,000 new notes out of the N20,000 she requested for.
A visit to mile one Market, mile three and some business centres shows that residents have started rejecting the old naira notes.
A resident, Mr Ifeanyi Lawrence, described the situation as very unfortunate, querying how CBN will give January 31st as the deadline to end the circulation of the old notes, yet there was no supply of the new naira notes.
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