Some residents of Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, have decried the persistent scarcity of naira notes, as banks and Point of Sale (PoS) operators are trading blame over the situation.
Speaking on Sunday, January 14, 2024, the residents said not so much had changed from what the situation was the last yuletide.
Some banks in Ibadan still have their limits on the amount of cash customers can withdraw from Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), even long after the festive season.
Describing his experience, an entrepreneur, John Alamu, said things were just a little bit better than they used to be during the Christmas period.
He noted that customers could only withdraw a maximum of N10,000 at some ATM points while many ATMs were empty.
Alamu said: “You will just see that you are moving from one point to another, looking for a working ATM to collect your money.
“The condition is still not pleasant and this has forced many people to be patronising PoS operators.”
A food vendor, Taiye Adeolu, said she now kept her cash to herself and was no longer saving in the bank because getting cash to use for business had remained difficult.
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“I go to the ATMs to get a little amount of money, which is way below what I need to run my business.
“Imagine that you need N100,000 and you’re told you cannot get more than N5,000 or N10,000.
“The banks are just gaining from innocent Nigerians who are labouring tirelessly to feed themselves,” Adeolu told NAN.
A civil servant, Olawale Alabi, lamented how frustrated he was having to move from one ATM point to another only to discover that he could only withdraw N1,000 from the last machine he got to.
Alabi wondered why Nigerians must be subjected to so much stress from the banks while PoS operators always had cash to trade with.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, two bank officials, however, said the PoS operators should be held responsible for the scarcity.
One of the officials alleged that some of the operators had multiple accounts and ATM cards, thus moving from one point to another to withdraw all the cash meant for everyone.
“It is even better that Nigerians are crying out because the problem does not lie with the banks.
“Banks have to place limits on withdrawals to curb the activities of PoS operators who empty ATMs and also withdraw via the counters,” the official said.
The official stated that the practice was for banks with enough cash to circulate to others in the same area, but that the situation had changed.
“The banks distributing the cash to other banks would first protect their interest and those of their customers and thus release few cash to other banks,” the official added.
The other bank official said cash was in short supply during the festive period because many people were stacking cash at home, leaving the banks with very few currencies to serve others.
The banker, however, advised Nigerians to do more electronic transfers, use more cards, and depend less on cash.
Reacting, the National Secretary of the Association of PoS Users in Nigeria (APOSUN), Isah Zakari, said there were lots of factors causing cash shortage.
Heaping the blame on commercial banks, Zakari said in December 2023, the banks reduced the amount of cash withdrawals for PoS operators.
He said: “The truth is, many PoS outlets are owned by bankers and what they do is to remove the money that is supposed to circulate within the banks for customers to cash, turning it to their PoS outlets.
“This is with the thinking that the country will stop the use of the old naira notes.
“At ATM points, limits on withdrawals have been placed; we cannot get more than N10,000 or N20,000.
“Our members have been complaining, especially in Zamfara and Kano, saying the only amount of money they can withdraw is N10,000.”
Zakari noted that their investigation revealed that bankers sell money to PoS operators, adding that the move could be tied to “dubious” bank managers.
“In addition to the naira shortage in Nigeria, Niger Republic is short of their currencies, thereby using naira as their alternative currency.
“This may go on until when the country (Niger) fully secure its autonomy from France,” he said.
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