Borno border, rural communities reject old Naira notes – Zulum

Gov. Babagana Zulum of Borno has said that the old Notes are no longer acceptable in many rural areas of the state, particularly border communities.

Zulum made this known on Friday in Maiduguri while receiving a team of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) who visited the state to monitor compliance with the bank policy on the new redesigned Naira notes.

He said many border communities who trade with communities in neighbouring Chad, Niger and Cameroon republics were in dilemma as their niegbours who normally collect Naira notes now insist it must be the new notes or no business.

The governor said many of such communities were suffering, citing Kala-Balge Local Government Area which has been inaccessible to vehicles for the past seven months due to difficult terrain and floods as well as unavailability of the new notes to be taken to them.

Zulum, who also listed other areas affected by difficult terrain and insecurity in the state, pointed out that only Maiduguri Metropolitan, Jere and Biu Local Government Areas have banks, making things difficult for the CBN policy to work in the state.

He said the expectation of Nigerians from CBN was that when it commenced the policy in December, banks would stop giving old notes but that was not the case.

“We are still receiving old notes. There is need for CBN to do justice to this matter.

“We are okay with the time frame but what about the availability of the funds?” Zulum queried.

While advising CBN to consider the peculiar state of Borno and others bedevilled by insecurity, the governor assured CBN of his administration to support them in addressing the problem in the state.

Earlier, Mr Mohammed Tumala, the Director, Statistics Department of the CBN, who led the delegation to Borno, said they were in the state to monitor compliance and to ensure that the new notes reached everywhere before the deadline of Feb. 31.

Tumala said the team had within the past two days visited all banks and ATM machines in Maiduguri to ensure compliance with the guidelines.

“We have observed high level of awareness in the population while substantial compliance was recorded in commercial banks and we made effort to resolve run-out cash problems of the banks,” he said.

Tumala revealed that there was a plan peculiar to Borno where agents would be provided for some areas without bank to collect deposits of the old notes from the communities.

He solicited for adequate security and other logistics support for the success of the plan that involved movement of large cash.