Close to a month after new banknotes were released, millions of Nigerians are still struggling to have a feel of the currencies.

The situation, monitored by The Guardian, yesterday, is almost the same across metropolitan cities.

This came as many banks damned the consequences of breaching the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) directive and continued to load automated tellers machines (ATMs) with the old notes, which are due to be phased out in about three weeks.

CBN Director (Currency Operations Department), Ahmed Umar, at a training session for state directors of the National Orientation Agency (NOA) in Abuja, on Tuesday, directed that banks switch to new notes in ATM cash operations to facilitate speedy circulation.

Visits to banks across Lagos revealed that many ATMs were still dispensing the old notes while requests for new notes at the counter were turned down for lack of sufficient supply.

Oluwayomi Adeyinka, an Access Bank customer at College Bus Stop, Isolo-Mushin Road, requested new N50,000 notes, yesterday, in exchange for the old. The cashier, however, told him he couldn’t have the new in that amount.

Some banks had sent notices informing customers to visit ATMs to withdraw the new notes. But as of yesterday, ATMs at branches of the banks were still paying the old notes. For instance, all ATMs along the Murtala Muhammed International Airport Road were still loaded with the old naira.

Speaking with The Guardian, in Abuja, Mrs. Bridget Olawole, a bank customer, said she was paid N200,000 cash in old notes across the counter. Her request for a few new notes was turned down.

She recounted: “I was eager to see the redesigned notes for the first time but was highly disappointed to still get paid with old notes. Government policies are neither here nor there in most cases but my greatest disappointment was that I was paid with very dirty and mutilated old notes.”

Also narrating her experience, Mrs. Stella Sunday said she found it ridiculous to be paid N100,000 in old notes at a PoS stand in Jabi Market, Abuja. She explained that contrary to expectations, many Nigerians are yet to see or feel the new notes.

The customers urged the CBN to make the notes available at every point of withdrawal, even as they solicited extension of the deadline to phase out old notes.

Commenting on the development, Professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Calabar, Omo-Ogun Ajai, implored Nigerians to be patient while the monetary authority finds a lasting solution to the circulation hiccups.

In Calabar, a few ATMs dispensed new N1,000 notes while majority continued to pay the old. The N200 and N500 notes were mostly dispensed at the counters.

The CBN had directed that banks pay N200 and other lower denominations at ATM terminals as a matter of policy. That, however, seemed to have changed as the spokesperson of the apex bank said any denomination was acceptable.

LONG queues took over the few ATMs paying the new bills in Calabar, The Guardian observed yesterday.

At counters, old notes were still being paid, leaving customers asking when banks would stop giving out notes that should no longer be legal tenders at the end of this month.

A customer explained: “To anyone you give the new note, there is a look of suspicion on their faces. People are not even aware. The old note is still much in circulation, and I don’t see it going out of circulation before January 30.

“I don’t see the magic they will perform to enlighten people, a few weeks to the end of the month, to be aware of the new notes. Because, take it or leave, most people don’t know about it.

“They need to extend the deadline and gradually allow people to get knowledge of the new notes. The only new note you will see, which is common, is N1,000. The N200 and N500 notes are still very scarce.”

Besides Makurdi, the new bills are considered a souvenir in other parts of Benue State.

In Gboko Council, for instance, all the banks visited by The Guardian were still giving out the old notes at ATMs and counters. The story was not different in Oturkpo Council and Zaki Biam, the headquarters of Ukum Council.

When The Guardian visited the Gboko branch of a second-generation bank yesterday morning, ATMs still issued old naira notes. Inside the bank, the situation was no different.

The bank manager said the old notes would be replaced with new ones later in the day, which turned out to be true. Only the bank, out of eight others with branches in Gboko, issued the new notes.

THERE was an air of confusion in Asaba, Delta State, yesterday, as some commercial banks dispensed the new notes scantily while others paid out the old to customers.

One customer, who expressed disappointment over the “situation of things”, accused CBN of taking the country’s complexity for granted in its implementation strategy and called for a comprehensive evaluation.

Mr. Ikechukwu Victor, another customer, said the new notes ought to have flooded the country, becoming more visible than the old ones. He described the scarcity as unfortunate.

Another customer, who did not mention his name, advised that old naira notes coming into banks should not be paid out.

One customer who fielded questions from The Guardian in Owerri, Imo State, said: “I went to my bank to withdraw. I was paid in old notes. But I noticed they were giving new ones to selected persons, possibly those they had a personal relationship with.”

While the new notes are scarce commodities, some passengers and traders in Asaba view the few visible ones with suspicion. Some reject them outright, describing them as fake.

IN the ancient city of Kano, long queues took over the premises of the few banks that were paying out the new notes. Some bank customers who were interviewed said they were yet to see the new notes.

A 32-year-old businessman, Kamalu Sanusi, argued that the new notes are non-existent in Kano. “Any time I ask bank cashiers, they will say the apex bank is yet to make them available,” he said.

Bank officials are also having a difficult time with customers who reject tattered and mutilated notes.

Ilu Muhammad, a customer, said it was unfortunate the banks would be giving out mutilated notes when they should have sent them to the CBN to be destroyed and replaced with new notes.

Most of the commercial banks in the Katsina State capital and neighbouring councils didn’t have a different tale from what obtained elsewhere in the country. Some had started giving out new notes but the old ones still dominated banking transactions.

MEANWHILE, CBN has commenced a nationwide enlightenment campaign at major markets, supermarkets and other public spaces on the redesigned motes and cashless policy.

The apex bank said in Abuja, yesterday, that the exercise would be sustained till the end of the month when the old notes would be withdrawn from the public.

“We cannot have new notes in abundance and still be dispensing old notes. We also feel that loading new notes in our ATMs will give us increment in traffic. We have witnessed slight queues at our machines today, mainly because of the new notes we have been dispensing,” a banker confided in The Guardian

He noted that Nigerians have nothing to worry about concerning availability of the new notes, saying CBN has taken adequate steps to ensure they are available.

“The initial anxiety by Nigerians is understandable. The anxiety to get the new notes is also not misplaced at all. There is a rush for it now but that will gradually wane as we approach the end-of-the-month deadline,” he said.