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Residents in Benin, Edo capital, on Monday refused to collect the old N500 and N1,000 notes being issued to customers at some commercial banks in the state.
Some of the bank customers who spoke during separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Benin, said their refusal was due to non- acceptance of old notes.
They said the refusal was mostly by traders and filling stations who rejected the notes as legal tender.
According to them, the rejection of the old notes from the banks was due to the difficulty in depositing them in the banks.
Some banks in the state have been paying customers with old N500 and N1,000 notes for over a week yet many business operators have refused to accept the money.
Many customers that visited some commercial banks including Heritage bank, Keystone, United Bank for Africa and Unity Bank, among others, rejected the old notes issued to them.
The customers were seen stranded at the various banks as they waited patiently for several hours for payment of the new Naira notes.
Some of the customers who spoke on the development said it was already causing a lot of hardship for the common man.
A customer at one of the banks, Mr Idris Usman, said he declined to collect the old notes since he would not be able to transact any business with them.
“I came by 6am today, they commenced operation by 9am and they were issuing old notes, which customers declined because traders were not accepting them as legal tenders.” “Last week, they paid me with old notes, I couldn’t spend any of the notes as people refused to accept them.“When I took the money to the bank that issued the money to me, they refused to collect them, asking me to take them to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN),” he said.
Also, Mr Noma Iguisi, Edo Chairman, National Association of Small-Scale Industrialists, urged the CBN and Federal Government to consider the small businesses in the country while going about the cashless policy.
“Small businesses are suffering because of this cashless policy. Many small business owners are not selling and buying because the cashless methods of payment is not reliable and accessible.
“The CBN should abide by the rule of law. I don’t think it is right for any government to go against the Supreme Court judgment,” he said.
Media report credited to former governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and governor of Anambra State, Chukwuma Soludo, as saying that the CBN has directed commercial banks to dispense and receive old currency notes from customers, without an independent confirmation by the apex bank.
