Naira scarcity: Students forfeit lectures to queue for money in banks

A student of Architecture at the University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus (UNEC) missed lectures for two days consecutively to cash N5,000 at an Automated Teller Machine (ATM).

“I have missed lectures for two days just to get N5,000 to feed and buy some toiletries as most shops only accept cash,’’ he told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday.

The student was lamenting the hardships himself and other students in tertiary institutions in Enugu State had been going through since the cash crunch induced by CBN’s cashless policy began.

The student is just a poster boy of hundreds of thousands of students in tertiary institutions as they are all having the same experience.

“We lack cash to buy food following the unavailability of the new naira notes,’’ he said.

A correspondent of NAN who visited UNEC and some other tertiary institutions in Enugu of Friday reported that students were crowded around ATMs in banks located in the schools while lectures were on-going.

Some students told NAN that they had been at banks located inside UNEC since 6 a.m. waiting to collect the maximum of N5,000.

The students appealed to banks to increase the amount being dispensed to enable them to buy the necessary things they needed.

A student, Miss Nonso Chukwueke, lamented that some bank apps were not functional because of poor connectivity, thereby making purchases by bank transfer virtually impossible.

“This is frustrating and I don’t know what to do because I don’t have cash; there’s no Point of Sale (PoS) functioning in the school,’’ she said.

It was similar story at the Godfrey Okoye University in Enugu as some students ran out of cash needed to buy food.

A student said she had only N300 in cash and didn’t know where to get the next meal, more so that examinations are on-going.

“No PoS is working in the school. They are closed due to lack of funds and food vendors and groceries are accepting cash only. I pray this ends soonest,’’ she told NAN.

Another student at the Institute of Management and Technology (IMT), Enugu, Miss Miracle Chima, said students’ problems had been compounded by transporters who would neither accept the old naira nor agree to be paid through bank transfer.

“I spend between N500 and N1,000 daily on transportation. Where do I get that kind of cash?” she queried.

The students appealed to banks and to the Federal Government to urgently address the situation and make money available to the public.