By: Amaechi Okonkwo – Port Harcourt.
Following directive from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to comply with the Supreme Court judgment on the validity of the old N200, N500 and N1000 notes till December 31, 2023, several commercial banks in Rivers State on Tuesday commenced across the counter payment of the old notes to customers.
Different branches of the various banks were witnessed paying the old notes to customers willing to accept them.
However, the payment was still being rationed according to the discretion of officials of the various banks. Moreover none of the banks was paying the new notes along with the old.
Checks by our correspondent along the Mile 1, Diobu, Port Harcourt area, cluster of banks revealed that a first generation bank was paying a maximum of N20, 000 to each customer while another bank paid maximum of N5, 000. Some other refused to disclose their limits only offering to say that they were paying the old.
Our Correspondent also discovered that no Automatic Teller Machines of any of the banks surveyed above was dispensing cash. This now diverted the crowd that usually gathers at the ATM points into the banking halls.
Speaking to our Correspondent, an operation officer of one of the banks who refused to disclose her name said that rationing the cash among customers was the only option opens the banks as they did not have enough cash to freely go round the customers.
She, however, expressed optimism that in the days ahead and especially, after the governorship and house of assembly elections of Saturday, adding that more cash would be released into the system to ameliorate the suffering of the masses and ease the huge pressure the banks have been operating under.
Also some of the customers collecting the old notes were doing so with cautious optimism saying it was for them to have it while praying that many more traders would begin to accept it for transactions as traders across the state were yet to fully embrace the extended validity of the old notes.
A customer, Ijeoma Ogu, said she had to accept the N20,000 to hold something as she has been frequenting the bank since Thursday last week without getting any cash. She said that with the CBN directive she expected that sooner than later people would start collecting the old notes and she would then be free to spend what she collected.
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