It has been two days after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) directed commercial banks to issue and accept the old naira notes, but naira scarcity still persists in the country.

Development Diaries reports that traders, business owners, and motorists still reject the old notes in different states.

In Ebonyi State, southeast Nigeria, business owners and transporters are still refusing to collect the old notes, making transactions difficult for people.

According to media reports, commercial banks issue old notes to customers but they only accept deposits of the same from customers who generate CBN codes from the CBN portal.

Many banks do not have cash to dispense, hence banks have begun to ration the disbursements of old N1,000 and N500 notes to their customers due to uncertainty over whether the CBN will release the old notes in its custody.

It is understood that CBN is still in possession of a reasonable volume of the old notes but would require sufficient time to sort it for distribution for onward re-issuance.

So it is not enough for CBN to only issue a directive on the status of the old notes; the apex bank ought to also communicate how it intends to solve this problem in the shortest possible time.

Development Diaries calls on the apex bank to ensure that deposit money banks (DBM) are provided with a sufficient amount of cash to dispense to their customers.

When this is done, we ask, too, that they, CBN, send their staff to all CBN and DMB branches nationwide to monitor the implementation of this directive.

We also implore the CBN to carry out sensitisation to this directive at the grassroots and in the informal sector to enable everyone to start accepting the old notes again.

Photo source: CBN