By Harry Awurumibe, Editor Abuja Bureau
Few days to the deadline for the old naira notes to seize to be legal tenders, commercial banks are still not issuing the redesigned currencies either through the Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) or over the counter.
This is even as most of the ATMs belonging to commercial banks have suddenly developed problems while the few still functioning have stopped dispensing either the new or old currencies.
Prompt News investigations revealed that most of the ATMs belonging to commercial banks in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have stopped functioning as residents run from pillar to post to source for cash to transact their daily businesses.
For example, ATMs belonging to Zenith Bank, UBA, First Bank, Access Bank, EcoBank, GTBank, Union Bank, etc at the popular Area 3 Wuse in Abuja metropolis are no longer dispensing any money as at the time of this report.
Also, it was discovered that a UBA branch located at West African Examination Council (WAEC) office in Maitama, FCT was still giving customers old mutilated notes across the counter while the two ATMs belonging to the same bank went dead.
Although two technicians were seen trying to fix one of the ATMs, a staff of the bank announced to the anxious large crowd waiting to make withdrawals at the machine that it will take long hours to be fixed.
Our reporter who waited for over three hours without cashing any money from the UBA ATM because it was still under repairs later left for another side of the metropolis to look for another functioning ATM to make cash withdrawals.
The situation at UBA Branch at WEAC Office in Maitama was the same at Zenith Bank and GTBank at Federal Secretariat in the Central Business District (CBD); Access Bank Branch at Zone 5 Wuse; First Bank at Shippers House, Zone 5; GTBank at Utako, Jaiz Bank at Wuse Market and Zenith Bank at Jabi among others.
Meanwhile, Prompt News can confirm that the same UBA Branch at WAEC Office in Maitama has started dispensing new N1000 notes at exactly 12:35 pm on Friday after the technicians succeeded in repairing one of the malfunctioning ATMs.
Excited customers including our reporter who returned to the bank after leaving in search of another ATM were able to make withdrawals although the machine was dispensing only one denomination of N1000.
Alhaji Aminu Usman and Mrs. Esther Solomon who also made withdrawals from the ATM expressed their joy to be able to get some money to use this weekend just as they urged Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Godwin Emefiele not to bow to pressure to extend the deadline for the old naira notes to become illegal currencies.
But Usman and Solomon admonished the CBN boss to flood the banks with lower denominations of the redesigned naira notes to make financial transactions easy for the petty traders and low income earners.
