President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Ayuba Wabba, yesterday, joined the Red Chamber of the National Assembly on the call for the Central Bank Of Nigeria (CBN), to extend the date for the stoppage of the use of the highest denominations of Nigeria’s currency.
Comrade Wabba made this call when he responded to questions during a media engagement with members of the Labour Correspondents Association of Nigeria, (LACAN), in Abuja.
The NLC President strongly kicked against the insistence of the CBN to implement its policy on none usage of N1000, N500 and N200 note in Nigeria starting from January 31st.
Giving reasons for its calls, the labour union said that the newly redesigned notes of the three currency are not widely circulated for the citizens to use. He added that the CBN will throw many Nigerians, especially those in the rural village into more hardship if it goes ahead to enforce the decision on the last day of January.
According to him, “The new notes are not in circulation and the old notes are being rejected. They are pushing people to the wall, and very soon people will react.
“Importantly, even in city centres, where we have banks, the banks are not dispensing. If you go to the rural areas and see the chaotic nature of how people have come with their money to change, it is becoming a problem.
“No policy should be meant to haunt people like what is happening now. And we call on the government to look at this issue very carefully before it snowballs into a major crisis.
Furthermore, the NLC president said, “In many parts of the world where they change such a policy, the citizens keep spending the currency and when the replaced currency enters the banking system it will not come out; the bank weill collect it, but will be releasing new ones.
“Right now, our commercial banks are culpable of inflicting hardship on Nigerians, go to the ATM points you will see what is happening. Most of them are not even dispensing. In most of the ATM machines, where you see four, only one will be working. You see many queues; and people have been subjected to all manner of action.
“The CBN did not think through this policy very well. If it is targeting the rich, the rich are the owners of the bank, the rich are already spending dollars and the rich are spending other currencies. So CBN is targeting the rich but punishing the poor”.
“As good as the policy is, it certainly is not making people believe that it is a policy meant to address a fundamental issue. People see the policy as a policy meant to punish the people.
“And people are going to really suffer for this policy incoherence and policy, which is not well thought out”, he further stated.
The NLC Chairman, therefore called for the policy to be reviewed and to give an extension so that all the old notes can then be mopped up by the bank”.
