Commercial banks in Nigerian have reportedly served notice on a category of their customers to stop accepting old naira notes following the expiration of the deadline of February 10 initially given to them by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Recall that the CBN set February 10 as the final date for the acceptance of old Naira notes by the banks.
However, the Supreme Court gave an interim order suspending this deadline pending the resolution of a suit filed by three states of the federation.
The Federal Government later said that it would abide by the order of the apex court, while pursuing legal processes to reverse the order.
However, it was learnt that the banks sent out notices to oil marketers to stop accepting old notes from their customers as they, the banks, would no longer accept them.
According to The Punch, the oil marketers have consequently threatened to close their filling stations in protest against this development.
The newspaper also reported that many traders in the Federal Capital Territory, Ogun, and Lagos States had started rejecting the old N1,000, N500, and N200 notes. The traders claimed that old notes collected from sales made were rejected by banks on Friday morning.
The development left many residents stranded with many having to find means to do bank transfers.
Explaining why some of the stations were rejecting the notes, the Secretary of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Abuja-Suleja, Mohammed Shuaibu, said, “There is a serious crisis now; bankers are not helping the system.
“They are passing circulars around now, asking filling stations not to collect old naira notes again. The bankers are saying filling stations should stop collecting old notes. And now, many of these filling stations are closing because where they make their deposits, the old notes are no longer permitted there.
“If this should continue, it is going to lead to a serious problem. They are asking us not to accept old notes because they won’t collect them from us. This is what is happening. So many of our members are now closing sales.”
He said some of these banks closed operations for the day before the expected time, stressing that Nigerians should not blame the filling stations for not selling products whenever they noticed the closure of retail outlets.
When reminded about the directive by the Federal Government that marketers should use point-of-sales machines and accept bank transfers, the IPMAN official said his members were willing to comply.
“Some of these bank transfers are usually reversed, while at times, the transferred money will not get to the receiver. These are the problems we face with the network providers.
“However, we’ve been taking the pains to see that we help the government in alleviating the plights of the masses. But if these banks are now telling filling stations that they are not going to collect the old notes, it is going to be a problem.
“So, it is better for the authorities to call these banks to order immediately, otherwise, by the time we shut down, it is going to create a massive problem nationwide,” Shuaibu added.
