Muhammad Garba
Governor Muhammad Badaru Abubakar has expressed his concern as people continue to spend hours in queues in Jigawa state over the scarcity of the new Naira notes.
He expressed his concern while reacting to the scarcity which is almost crippling economic activities in the state.
Badaru who spoke through his Commissioner of Finance, Hon. Babangida Umar added that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) policy has failed to take cognisant of the local communities in its implementation.
“The inadequate supply of the new notes to Jigawa state is seriously affecting our economic activities, therefore I am appealing to CBN to without any further delay take all necessary measures to supply enough new notes to the commercial banks in the state,” Badaru stated.
However going round Dutse capital, long queues were observed at all ATM points while POS operators closed as they have no cash to transact the monetary business.
A civil servant in the state, Mustapha Salisu said he spent over 12 hours in ATM queues to withdraw money to feed his family after receiving a salary alert.
Hajiya Talat Sani a food vendor also expressed her worries over low patronage as a result of scarcity of the new notes while the e-transfer is not effective and friendly to rural communities in the state.
Also, Saifullahi Ibrahim of Kudai town in Dutse who was found standing at the ATM very exhausted and furious said “this CBN policy is very unfriendly and unfair to us rural dwellers.
“The new Naira note is not even available, I don’t have it, for three days now I cannot feed my children talk less of paying for their daily transportation fair to school, please Baba Buhari we beg you in the name of God reconsider the extension of the deadline for old Note” Saifullahi stated
It was also observed that only 10 out of 27 local governments in the state have functional commercial banks in the state.
