Mr. Governor,
Thank you and Mr. President for listening to Nigerians and accepting to extend the January 31 date for the execution of the death sentence you passed on our old notes.
Now that we have 10 more days, we have precious time to make up for the shortcomings that made January 31 unviable. Without overcoming them, the February 10 dateline will still witness a similar pressure building up in the system and you will be forced to open the gate valve again.
I suggest here 3 simple measures and they have more to do with the CBN than with citizens:
1. Fight trading of new notes in Banks. Get banks to account for the new notes they are receiving from the apex banks. In Samaru, for example, only JAIZ Bank is dispensing new notes at ATM these days. Didn’t the other banks receive new notes from CBN? If they did, where did they take it to? Many bankers have been trading the new notes for higher amounts of old notes. Block this.
2. Banks should dispense (only) new notes at ATM from January 30 continuously for the 10 days following. Sanctions must be placed on any branch that doesn’t dispense the new notes at any part of the 24 hours at its ATM. Open channels (phone numbers and social media accounts) for citizens to report defaulting branches.
3. As you do for the rural areas, get Super Agents to reach out to citizens with old notes in cities too.
4. Keep your options open. In case things don’t still work out by February 10, another extension would not be a sin. You are here to serve us and not to strangulate us, Mr. Governor.
* Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde writes from Bauchi
