naira scarcity

Nigeria: Angry customers force banks to shut down branches

By Ben Ezeamalu

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Posted on February 9, 2023 12:06

 First Bank of Nigeria, Stanbic IBTC and GCB Bank are among the banks participating in this payment system. © REA.
First Bank of Nigeria, Stanbic IBTC and GCB Bank are among the banks participating in this payment system. © REA.

Several Nigerian banks have shut down their branches as threats of attacks on their staff and facilities by angry customers intensify across the country.

Over the past week, customers have become increasingly frustrated by the inability of their banks to provide basic banking services, leading them to spend long hours in banking halls and at Automated Teller Machines. The customers have continued to grapple with the twin headache of unavailability of new Naira notes, which were recently introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), as well as the banks’ slow internet servers.

“It’s terrible, you have to queue for fuel, queue to get your PVC [Permanent Voters Card], then queue to get your own cash,” Godson Ahuchaogu, a chartered accountant, tells The Africa Report.

Naira redesign policy

The CBN had introduced a Naira Redesign Policy late last year to swap the higher denomination notes of N200 ($0.43), N500 ($1.09), and N1000 ($2.17) with new ones. The bank initially fixed 31 January as the deadline, but following the scarcity of the

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