There is a steady increase in the scarcity of Naira notes across many states in the country including some parts of the nation’s commercial capital, Lagos.
The latest scarcity has become increasingly noticeable in the past week.
States said to be battling the cash crunch include Bauchi, Borno, Kaduna, Kano, Kebbi, Taraba, as well as some satellite towns of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The scarcity is coming amidst data from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), revealing that the total currency in circulation has reached N4.14 trillion, with N3.87 trillion of this amount currently outside the banking system.
Also, the CBN data revealed that currency in circulation in Nigeria has added N1.48 trillion or 55.8 per cent Year-on-Year (YoY) to N4.14 trillion as of August 2024, from N2.66 trillion in August 2023.
A Point of Sales (POS) operator in Borno State, Hamza Abdullahi, who spoke with newsmen, was of the opinion that some businessmen buying up grains on a large scale were said to be mopping up cash.
Abdullahi said operators no longer get the required cash in banks, and therefore have to depend on traders and petrol stations.
He said: “Traders are busy buying the new harvests and to do this, they need cash because farmers in our rural areas do not use electronic payment channels. Some do not even have bank accounts.”
He said many people are also buying goats and other animals that are transported to the South ahead of Christmas, adding that these are largely cash transactions contributing to the scarcity.
He said for N50,000, POS operators now charge N1, 000 as against N500 previously.
Another POS operator in Kano State, Abubakar Sadiq Danzaria, said some of his colleagues are now exploiting the situation by increasing their charges for withdrawals.
A visit to some bank’s ATM terminals in the affected states shows that some are not dispensing while others with cash have been limited to between ₦20,000 and ₦50,000 daily.
The situation is not much better for withdrawals over the counter in the banking halls.
Attempts by the aforementioned publication to speak with branch operations managers in most of the states did not yield results as the officers of the banks said they were not authorised to speak to the media.
Efforts to get the official reaction of the CBN’s Ag. Director, Corporate Communications, Hakama Sidi, was also not successful as she did not answer a call to her cell phone, and did not also respond to a message sent to her by WhatsApp.