Cash Crunch Bites Harder In Lafia

Yusuf Usman

Commercial Banks in Lafia the Nasarawa state capital have been witnessing a beehive of activities as customers converged to form long queues outside banks to make withdrawals ahead of Saturday’s presidential and National Assembly elections.

A drive to most of the banks within lafia showed an unusually large crowd of customers gathered outside the banks at ATM points or waiting to go inside to make withdrawals over the counter.

In an interview with some of the customers, Timothy Joshua and Ibrahim Zakari complained that most of the ATMs at various banks have not been dispensing cash.

On their part, Mrs Esther John, miss Zainab Aliyu and Yakubu Garba attributed the sudden increase in the demand for cash to the general election coming up this weekend.

An investigation by Radio Nigeria revealed that some banks deliberately stopped their Automated Teller Machines to attend directly to their customers who can withdraw up to 20 thousand naira at the counter.

In an attempt to talk to officials of the banks, none of them agreed to speak.

In the meantime, the lafia and its environs are calm as people go about their normal businesses and also with the additional presence of security personnel ahead of the forthcoming general elections.