Confusion in Lagos as drivers, traders reject old Naira notes

Lagos metropolis was thrown into confusion on Wednesday as drivers rejected the old Naira notes, throwing commuters going to work and their places of businesses into disarray. The drivers overtly rejected the old N200, N500 and N1,000 redesigned notes, compelling residents of the state to either pay with the new notes or N100 notes.

The extremist drivers insisted on the exact fares on several routes into the heart of the city of Ikeja, while some considerate drivers gave confessions to reducing the transport fares to N100 per trip in the Ikeja suburbs.

Operators of Keke Marwa shuttling between Ogba and Ikeja conceded to collecting N100 rather than the ‘normal’ N200 per trip on the distance, but insisted that commuters must have N100 notes to avoid crisis. Buses from Agege to Ikeja also adjusted to N100 per trip against the N200 fares.

Some other commercial bus operators moving people from the inner areas of Ishaga, Oke Aro, among others to the outskirts of Ikeja also made relative adjustments to the circumstance of the day.

However, Marwa operators between Agege and Ishaga were still collecting the old notes with comfort. They rather made relative increase from N150 to N200 per trip. However, commuters on this axis of the state had relief.

Speaking to National Daily, several commuters lamented that they came out with the redesigned Naira notes they have not changed to the new notes. They expressed disappointed that the commercial banks failed to make the new notes available despite the deadline order of the CBN. Virtually all the commuters expressed perturbation how they will go back home after the day’s work and businesses.

Meanwhile, some residents of the state on that axis engaged themselves in conversation, trying to mobilise people against rejecting the Naira notes. They rather encouraged that the Naira notes should be circulating among them, saying that people should continue the use of the redesigned notes in daily trading and other services, deposit them with PoS operators and go back to withdraw from them and continue their businesses.

A roadside food seller at Ogba was sighted doing retail sales of cooked food with PoS. She told National Daily that she sensed that the old notes would be rejected anytime from Wednesday and she had to go for PoS, adding that she records every payment through the process as people pay for buying food with ATN cards.

Meanwhile, many retail outlets have shut down. The few traders that opened at the time of this report, insisted also on rejecting the old notes, saying that the distributors n longer collect the old notes from them.

Some petrol stations started rejecting old notes in the zone on Tuesday, sending strong signal that drivers any respond to that the next day.