CBN Exchanges Currencies In Gombe Villages With No Banks

BY NAJIB SANI, GOMBE

As part of efforts to bring succour to villagers in this period of naira swapping, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) officials and agents led by the director development finance department of the bank Philip Yila Yusuf has visited Tula village of Kaltungo local government area of Gombe State to change old currencies for the residents with the new ones.

In an interview exclusive interview with our correspondent, some of the villagers revealed that they have no single bank in the community where they could go and swap their currencies since the introduction of the redesigned naira notes.

A housewife and petty trader Amina Aliyu stated that traders have stopped collecting old notes for the fear of loss adding that no commercial bank is present in the village and they had to travel to Kaltungo local government headquarters or Gombe State capital to get the new notes.

She said she sells local foods like masa, awara, fried potatoes and beans cakes where she saved reasonable profits but said to change the money into new notes was a problem due to absence of a single commercial bank in the village.

“We don’t have a bank here, we go to either Kaltungo or Gombe to swap our currencies. From here to Kaltungo, the transportation fare is N500 while from here to Gombe the transportation fare is N1, 000. And you will pay the same amount to return.

“One will then join queues and wait for hours before he can withdraw from the ATM machines. Before you come back home, it is late night. This was the situation before central bank comes to the rescue today”. She said.

Earlier, the CBN director Philip Yila Yusuf represented by an assistant director Stephen Ambore explained that the bank directed them to go to rural areas with their agents to swap currencies for the rural people at their door steps.

He said the decision was meant to ensure that the rural people access the new notes like other citizens and to also sensitize them on the need to deposit their monies in banks.

According to him, they also went to commercial banks in the state to monitor how the swapping exercise was going on noting that CBN has disbursed the redesigned naira notes to the commercial banks for onloading in their ATMs.