By Starrys Obazei | April 9, 2023
starrys@ddnewsonline.com.
The zeal with which you gave out Central Bank of Nigeria’s phone number and email address to the public for the purpose of reporting erring Point of Sales, POS, operators for police harassment and possible prosecution, is alarming.
These POS people are just trying to survive in a harsh world made harsher by your naira redesign policy that went awry.
Why are you trying to criminalize innocent people, just because they are not powerful?
You are the No.1 money manager in Nigeria. Why are you not more disturbed about billions of naira stolen by oil thieves. At least, you can show concern in the media on how to tackle the menace that is making your vault less filled.
Why are you also not doing anything about forex parallel market manned illegally by our brothers from the north.
Maybe, you are scared about the heavyweights behind them!
We had all thought that after the elections, old notes will flood the banking system and naira scarcity will end, but no, it’s getting worse.
Instead of you to do something urgent about stabilizing our erstwhile robust banking system which is gradually suffocating at your hand, you are planning to haunt and hunt POS people.
If the banking system normalizes, POS operators will naturally return to N100 for N5,000 and N200 for N10,000. Market forces are at play in the transaction charges by operators now.
These innocent people you are seeing as villains are actually helping you.
On Good Friday, all the Zenith Banks’ ATM galleries at Iju-Ishaga, Agege, College Road did not dispense money at all. People were able to get money only from Access Banks and POS operators.
Instead of thanking them, you are now making troubles for them
If the public cannot get money from the banks, they get succour from POS sources who get money at all costs, just to satisfy their customers. And they pay heavily for the money from filling stations and local markets. A hundred thousand naira cost N6,000 now.
If these minor traders in cash sell N10,000 for N200, their earning will be N2,000, for the N100,000 bought with N6,000.
A lot of petrol filling stations no longer accept transfers because they want to sell the cash to POS buyers.
Mr. CBN governor, why is naira scarcity still persisting?
Just imagine what could have happened if the Supreme Court did not force you to circulate the old naira notes. And even upon that the scarcity continues.
Many pessimists are silently spreading the possibility that you must have burnt or ground a great quantum of the old naira notes.
One POS woman said you have a zeal for wickedness and frustrating your fellow humans.
Nigerians are most deprived citizens in this world and they had been enjoying a level-playing ground in banking as regards withdrawing their little savings without caring about you and your ilk who have billions.
But now, Nigerians are unprecedentedly deprived during your own term as CBN governor. They are now buying money with their own money.
Before the Supreme Court brought sanity to your policy on old notes, naira became the most expensive product in the market where N100,000 is bought for N17,000 or more. It was that bad!
The ball will remain in your court until you and you alone do the needful to normalize things in the banking sector.