The NLC President, Ayuba Wabba, stated this, while appealing to the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, to listen to the voice of reason and extend the deadline and make the new banknotes much available for seamless transaction.
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has warned that if the Central Bank Of Nigeria (CBN) did not extend the deadline for the use of the old currency notes, it would push the rural villagers into more hardship.
The NLC President, Ayuba Wabba, stated this, while appealing to the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, to listen to the voice of reason and extend the deadline and make the new banknotes much available for seamless transaction.
Wabba, who spoke on Thursday in Abuja, kicked against the insistence of the CBN to implement its policy on non-usage of N1000, N500 and N200 note in Nigeria starting from January 31.
The NLC boss said, “We align ourselves fully with the position of Senate because we go to the rural areas. We have workers in rural areas. We have many of our local governments that don’t have banking facilities and some of those areas are even very hard to reach.
“So we call for this policy to be reviewed and to give an extension so that all the old notes can then be mopped up by the bank. We call on CBN, particularly in areas where you don’t have banks, don’t just go to one or two local governments as they did in Borno. Don’t select places and then tell the media that you are doing the right thing, you are doing the wrong thing.
“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."
Wabba, however, maintained that no government policy should be meant to haunt people like what was presently happening.
He also warned the Federal Government to look into the policy carefully before it snowballed into a major crisis.
“The fact of the matter is that the new notes are not available. There are only a few in circulation. The situation is worst in the areas because most of our rural areas don’t have banks. In the state, I come from, in the entire state, we have only three banks. We have 27 local governments, and only three local governments have banks: Jere, Maiduguri and Biu. Of all the other local governments; 24 of them don’t have banks.
“I learned that the CBN went to 1 or 2 local governments with cash, and they were exchanging 10,000. So we must think through these policies. You cannot just come up with policies that punish Nigerian people. I’m sure that those, this policy is targeted, are not the people that will feel the consequences of this policy, rather it is the poor masses and even the working class that will feel the pinch of this policy,” Wabba said.
He added, “How do you know to withdraw an old currency when the new one is not even available? The day they made that pronouncement, what they ought to have done is to flood everywhere with the new naira note which is not available. And many people, many of our people will actually have issues with this policy.
“We align ourselves fully with the position taken by the Senate. This policy will certainly impact negatively on our economy; and on the people in the rural areas even in urban areas because the notes are not available.
“When you go to spend the old notes now; people are rejecting it. So either way, people are already in the middle and they are suffering the consequences of this policy which has not been well thought out.
“In many parts of the world where they change policy, the citizens keep spending the currency when it entered the bank it will not come out. The bank we’ll collect it and they 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.”