Last week, The National Press Newspaper wrote a story about ‘Scarcity of Naira In Nigeria’. Investigation by the newspaper shows that lack of trust between informal sector, pety traders, articians etc which hold 70% of cash circulating in the country responsible for none availability of naira notes.
Speaking with some of the traders on the streets of Lagos, Abuja, investigations by National P{ress indicates that some of the conditions requested by Nigerian banks before releasing your hard earned money to the owners needs a special ‘anabolic styroids’ to cale through.
For example, linking of the National Identification Number, NIN, to bank account: Our investigations revealed that before banking your cash with any commercial banks in Nigeria, you don’t need NIN, but immediately you gave them your cash, it is difficult for you to access your cash without NIN.
Even if you managed to provide an NIN, the names on the NIN has to tally with your bank acccounts. All these, discourages informal sector of the economy from keeping their money with any bank in Nigeria.
According to Mr. Oladele, an artisan on the street of Lagos, “Before given my cash to bank, NIN, was not needed, immediately I released th cash to banks to keep for me, I couldn’t access my cash bank without NIN. Even if I give them NIN, two names tally with my account, Nigeria banks will not release my money to me. Banks always insists on all names, arrangement of names be tally before accessing my cash. All these, discourages us from banking our cash with the banks,!” he concluded.
In another development, Alhaji Dogo, a ram trader from Sokoto said: “me, to carry my cash to bank? Never. during Emefiele time of changing currency, I lost a lot of money. I will never carry my money to bank again. If I give my money to keep for me, the bankers will ask of BVN, NIN before they give me my money bank. All these, I will never bank with them using my cash again.”
