The scarcity of the redesigned naira notes and the fact that traders and business owners are rejecting the old notes have forced many residents to adopt cashless transactions in Awka, Anambra.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had fixed January 31 as the deadline for using the old naira notes.

The redesigned naira notes, comprising N200, N500 and N1,000, became legal tender on December 15, 2022, after President Muhammadu Buhari unveiled them on November 23, 2022, in Abuja.

A check at Zik’s Avenue, UNIZIK Junction, Regina, Okpuno and Aroma areas discovered traders and business owners asked their customers to pay with new notes.

It was also discovered that some of the Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) in major parts of Awka still dispensed the old naira notes while there were long queues at a few ATMs issuing the redesigned naira notes.

Some banks dispensing the new notes have configured their ATMs to dispense N5,000 or N10,000 per transaction.

Also, some Point of Sale (PoS) operators still paid with old naira notes, while some who had the redesigned ones increased their charges by 100 to 200 per cent.

Nnenna Okafor, a cyber cafe operator at Aroma, said she had already deposited all her old naira notes at the bank after spending about three hours and resolved to stop collecting old notes from her customers.

Another resident, Johnpaul Ikeze, who runs a supermarket in the Regina area, said he refused to collect old notes to avoid the notes getting stuck with him since it is barely three days to the expiration of the old naira notes.

“Since Friday, my customers have been using debit cards or mobile transfers to pay for products, and it is even easier. My family has also resorted to mobile transfer if we need to pay for something,” he said.

Ego Uzoma, a civil servant, said at Eke-Awka market that she had to do a mobile transfer to pay for a commodity she bought at the sum of N500 because the store owner refused to collect old naira notes.

Ms Uzoma lamented that she had to pay so much per transaction for the mobile transfers.

“I scrambled to deposit the old naira notes at the bank, I cannot afford to take them back, and I cannot also pay extra at the PoS to get new notes, which is why I resorted to cashless transactions,” she said.

Narrating his ordeal, Eric Uzor, an Engineer, said he had to buy additional needless commodities to the tune of N1000 because he could not afford to pay for a N250 item using mobile transfer.

“They should make these new naira notes available for people to use. The scarcity has been very frustrating here in Anambra,” he said. 

(NAN)