Video: CBN Reacts As Sugarcane Seller Uses POS Machine For His Customers

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has sparked reactions on its official Twitter handle after sharing a video clip of a sugarcane seller attending to his customers using a Point of Sales (POS) machine.

Naija News understands that the development came amid the hardship of transactions following the scarcity of new naira notes across the country.

Recall that the CBN had given February 10, 2023, as a deadline for the acceptability of old N1000, N500 and N200 notes. The apex bank had earlier announced January 31st as the deadline but eventually postponed it after outcry from Nigerians.

The CBN has, in several publications, urged citizens to visit POS operators and money agents to swap their naira notes before the new deadline. Subsequently, it gave a directive to commercial banks to commence issuing the new naira notes on the counter.

On its official handle on the microblogging platform on Thursday evening, the CBN shared a video clip with the caption: “There are no boundaries to going cashless.”

Naija News understands that the post has generated reactions on social media.

See the post below:

There are no boundaries to going cashless! pic.twitter.com/UKUQLsFPVo

— Central Bank of Nigeria (@cenbank) February 2, 2023

El-Rufai Faults CBN Over Old Naira Notes Swap Deadline

Meanwhile, Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has faulted the CBN over the deadline for the swapping of the old naira notes.

Speaking during an appearance on a TVC programme, Journalists’ Hangout, on Thursday, El-Rufai said the time frame for the cashless policy was inflicting needless pain on Nigerians.

He stated that the All Progressives Congress (APC) was not against the cashless policy but argued for the extension of time to enable the citizens to deposit the old notes in the bank.

He said, “I have a map of Nigeria with blind spots where there is no network; PoS won’t work there. It is not everywhere that you have bank branches. It is not everywhere you have PoS working. So, let’s sit and look at this thing and find out the reasonable time it takes to do this.

“Even the Central Bank Act that gives the President the power to issue to the Central Bank directives with regard to currency redesign says that reasonable time must be given before the currency ceases to be legal tender.

“The question is: Is a few weeks a reasonable time in a country of one million square kilometres and over 200m people? How many bank branches are in Nigeria? How many ATMs?

“In Borno State, there are only two local governments out of 27 with a bank branch. In Yobe, only two local governments out of 17 have a bank branch.

“Even a cosmopolitan state relatively in the north like Kaduna has two local governments that have no bank branches and 10 with only one bank branch.

“So, everyone in that local government must come to that one bank branch? And this PoS that you are seeing in every street of Lagos; do you think you have PoS in every street of Kubau, Ikara and Makarfi which are local government headquarters in my state?”