Pregnant Woman Dies Over Naira Scarcity in Kaduna

VOICE AIR MEDIA News Update

A heavily pregnant woman in Kasuwan Magani, Kajuru Local Government Area of Kaduna State, lost her life due to the unavailability of the new naira notes in banks.

James Auta, the deceased’s husband, said his wife was rejected by the hospital when he could not make the payment due to failure to access cash in his bank and Point of Sale (POS) channels.

The incident happened early this month after Auta’s wife went into labour but was rejected, simply because her husband couldn’t make a payment due to naira scarcity.

It was gathered that the woman died at home after giving birth but continued to bleed. The incident caused concerns across the state as patients and their family members found it difficult to make payments to access treatments due to the naira shortage.

Accroding to Dailytrust report, the extended deadline to phase out the old notes was Friday, 10 February. However, the Supreme Court gave an order restraining the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) from enforcing the deadline for the phasing out of the N200, N500 and N1,000 notes, pending the hearing of a lawsuit brought by three northern states challenging the new currency redesign. It adjourned that hearing until 15 February.

The Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, is challenging that interim ruling by the Supreme Court and the central bank has not spoken on how it intends to comply with the ruling, thus leaving Nigerians confused.

President Muhammadu Buhari held an emergency meeting of the National Council of State on Friday to discuss crucial issues affecting the country including the currency crisis. However, Mr Buhari has not taken a decision on the cash crunch.

Parts of Nigeria have descended into chaos as frustrated Nigerians besieged ATM units in a bid to access their own money.

Violent protests have been recorded in parts of the country, including in Ogun, Oyo and Akwa Ibom in the country’s south, and social media is awash with lamentations of suffering Nigerians, who are not able to access their funds for transactions.

Meanwhile, the CBN has said that the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company Plc (NSPMC), has the capacity and enough materials to produce the required indent of the naira notes.

The apex bank also said that it was working to increase the circulation of the new notes across the country.