The leadership of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, MCBAN, has appealed to the Central Bank of Nigeria , CBN, to extend the deadline for the circulation of the redesigned currencies by three months to enable its members have more time to deposit their current currencies in the banks.
The leader of the association in the South-East, Gidado Siddiki said yesterday in Awka that the extension would enable its members who are mostly living in the forests and bushes due to the nature of their grazing business, to bring out their savings for proper transformation to redesigned naira notes to avoid huge losses. According to the CBN, the redesigned currencies will start circulating on December 15, 2022.
While expressing their full support for the new policy, Siddiki recalled that when a similar policy was announced in 1985, many of his members who were in their grazing settlements in the rural areas across the country, lost their money because of the impromptu nature of the execution of the policy.
He said: “The cattle breeders could not meet up with the time frame given then by the apex bank as the two weeks given was not enough for them to meet up.
“As a result, the majority of the herders lost their life savings because many of them do not have bank accounts and therefore do not keep their money in the banks. Their normal practice is to keep and protect their money wherever they are.
“We cannot fight or reverse the government policy as law-abiding citizens of Nigeria, but we are only appealing to the CBN to help us extend the deadline for another three months to enable the leadership of Miyetti Allah to reach out properly to those living in out-of -ommunication areas across states of the federation.”
