Strong indications emerged on Friday, on the eve of the presidential elections, that the majority of potential voters who hold permanent voter cards may not be able to travel to their regions to exercise their basic right.
This is due to the difficulty of securing the money needed for travel as a result of the ongoing cash crisis.
While some inner-city commercial drivers were willing to accept electronic funds transfers, others insisted on cash-based fares for transportation.
An official of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW, at Maraba Motor Park in FCT, Tunde Babaita, said that the number of passengers has decreased in the past few days due to the naira crisis.
Speaking in Ilorin, on Friday, he told DAILY POST that “Before the naira crisis, we used to load around 50 vehicles of passengers going to the northern part of the country every day.
“But it has dropped to 20 per cent since the naira swap crisis started,” he added.
He said that while some passengers pay cash for their fare, others pay through electronic transfers to the driver’s personal bank account, with an additional N100 service charge to withdraw the respective drivers before they take off from the car park.
Tunde Papita, secretary of the motor park union’s branch, said he hoped the situation would change after Saturday’s presidential and National Assembly elections.
Meanwhile, operators of Point of Sale machines in Ilorin have raised fees on cash withdrawals by more than 50 to 100 percent.
A cash draw of N10,000 now attracts commission of N2,000 and up while N1,000 attracts N1,000 depending on work location.
A customer who withdrew N7000 from a POS operator in Murtala Muhammed Road, Ilorin, was forced to forfeit N1,400 as commission by the operator.
In response, the PoS operator blamed the situation on the inability of commercial banks to issue enough cash to the public.
The operator who identified herself as Mrs. Bhola, while lamenting the scarcity of naira money, said on Thursday that she was in the bank but only bank customers who were lucky enough to enter the banking hall were allowed to cash 20,000 naira through the banking area. Counter.
The Daily Post reported that the majority of commercial banks were not operating on Friday because they were closed while ATMs were not operating even while people were waiting, hoping the machines would be loaded with cash.
In another reaction by a customer, Vimi Budd, an insurance agent in Ilorin, described the current naira swap situation and fuel scarcity as critical.
“We buy fuel at N360 a liter but at the normal official pumping rate I would fill my jeep at about N27,000 and with the current high I would need N35,000 to fill up my car.
He added, “Business is also off, I am also working on purified water production, we buy diesel at N800 and above per liter among other overhead costs.”
Femi questioned why the Federal Government had made the N500 and N1000 obsolete but allowed the old N200 banknote as legal tender in the country, saying “We are going through pains like we have not seen in the history of this country”.
He pointed out that the timeline of the naira exchange policy was too short and wrongly timed as it negatively affected the poor masses.
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