The current cash crunch being experienced by Nigerians is not the fault of the Central Bank of Nigeria CBN and it should not be blamed if the new naira notes are made available by the banks.
The apex bank has done what it is supposed to do by supplying the commercial banks and even followed it with a threat that banks that fail to dispense the money appropriately would be sanctioned, but the greedy and corrupt nature of the officials of commercial banks have led the country to this mess we are going through.
We all know that this an election time, and it is obvious that most politicians who would ordinarily not win an election under a free and fair atmosphere that is devoid of using money to buy votes are now forming an unholy alliance with some unscrupulous bank officers to corner the money for their own selfish end at the detriment of the general public.
Some of these politicians are alleged to have hoarded the old naira notes at homes and intended to win at all costs during the elections through vote buying. But unfortunately, the CBN redesign of the naira notes policy happens to have coincided with the election period. The policy is intended to bring into the banking system most of the money that are circulating outside the banking system.
Politicians that have hoarded loads of naira at home ready for distribution during the election were cut unaware by this policy. It further alleged that in their attempt not to lose their money, they are now conspiring with some of the bank officials that are providing the new notes to these politicians at the expense of the general public.
Just imagine these scenarios with some of the banks. The money that has been allocated to them by the CBN. The banks have decided to sabotage the CBN by hoarding the money. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had to engage security agencies like the Police, ICPC, and EFCC in order to enforce its directive on the new naira note. The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) last week Friday, discovered the sum of N258m stashed in the vault at the head office of Sterling Bank in Abuja.
It was in one of the ICPC operations that this was discovered. When the ICPC monitoring team visited the bank and discovered the stashed new Naira notes in the bank’s vault, it was informed that the cash was the remnant of what the CBN had given the bank for onward distribution to its branches.
The team however found out that only N5 million each was distributed to their various branches.
Both the Regional and Service managers were arrested and later granted administrative bail while the investigation continues.
Similarly, the Commission has effected the arrest of the Head of Operations, Keystone Bank, Mararaba in Nasarawa State for frustrating its customers at getting the new Naira notes.
The ICPC team, while on its routine operation, found out that the Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) at the branch were not dispensing to its customers, while other bank customers were accessing only One thousand Naira.
It was only after the arrest was made and clarification received from CBN that the position of the officers of the bank was not correct, that the ATMs started dispensing Five Thousand Naira to non-customers and Ten Thousand Naira to its customers.
The team also arrested one Abdulkareem Shaibu, a Security Guard with Zenith Bank, 3rd Avenue Gwarimpa, as well as Ali Adam and Shafiu Umar.
While Shaibu, the Security Guard was arrested for being in possession of five ATM cards which he was using to collect money for different unknown persons who were not within the Bank premises at that time, Adam and Umar were arrested in front of Zenith Bank, 1st Avenue Gwarimpa, for selling the new Naira notes.
In another development, two officials of FCMB Ogo-Oluwa, Osogbo have been taken into custody for assault of officers of ICPC and CBN Cash Swap Monitoring Team.
Recall that it was reported last week that the said branch was caught twice for loading wrapped bank notes inside its ATMs.
The team, on a follow-up visit to ascertain the bank’s compliance level, was assaulted right inside the Branch Manager’s office by the bank officials who vehemently refused to allow ICPC to carry out its lawful duty, and then held hostage for about two hours.
By the time the reinforcement of Police and NSCDC officers arrived the scene of the incident, the masterminds of the assaults had gone into hiding, leading to the arrest of two bank officers who were also complicit.
Borno State
For instance, it took a serious threat from the Borno State Governor, Professor Babagana Zulum, last week for banks to come to their senses in the state following the allegation that bank officials were hoarding naira notes from the people.
Unhappy with the fate of the people in the state, the governor directed banks in the state to dispense the new notes via Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and banking halls or risk losing their lands to the state government.
Zulum gave the warning after visiting branches of banks in Maiduguri, the state capital, to assess problems faced by residents trying to access new naira notes.
“Any bank in Borno State unwilling to ensure their ATMs are fully dispensing new naira notes cash to ease the suffering of our people, we will withdraw their land title immediately. We will only spare Banks with verifiable constraints,” Zulum said.
He added that he was unhappy seeing hundreds of people queuing at a bank branch, with
He said further: “We just released salaries of about N5 billion, and the banks don’t have money; some of the ATMs are not working. We don’t have any problem with the CBN policy or the withdrawal limit, they said individuals could only withdraw N20,000, but why can’t everyone have access to that N20,000?” he queried
In Ogun State, the CBN said it discovered N4 million of new naira notes hoarded in some commercial banks in the state.
The Deputy Director, banking supervision department, CBN Lagos, Kayode Makinde, said this earlier in the week while monitoring the distribution of the new naira notes.
The CBN senior staffer, who was angry accused commercial banks of sabotaging the efforts of the CBN to make the new naira notes available.
Makinde told the public to blame the commercial banks over the scarcity of the new notes, saying the CBN has done its part.
“This is the third week of ensuring strict implementation of our directive as regards the issuance of new notes. We have banks, agents, and super agents circulate new notes in the economy. The experience has been mixed; we saw some trying to hoard new notes, we compelled them to upload into ATM terminals, and others had poor cash management.
“From our experience, CBN should not be blamed but commercial banks for scarcity. We caught some of them with new notes in their vault, and we compelled them to upload them to their machines. We told them that instead of trying to ration, upload the ones they have and contact your central cash Management unit, which has direct access to CBN, for more.
“We came across instances of sabotage on the part of operators, we will take the case up, and they will be dealt with appropriately
Olusola Bello