Naira scarcity: Educationists send message to Buhari govt., school owners

By Ibrahim Kegbegbe

General Secretary of the Association for Formidable Educational Development (AFED), Lagos State Branch, Samuel Kadiri, has appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari-led government to provide a solution to the scarcity of Naira notes.

He also advised the owners of private schools to understand the hardship faced by parents of pupils.

Kadiri, who is also the proprietor of the Tosam Nursery, Primary, and Secondary Schools, Lekki, made the appeal while granting an interview on Monday, 6 February 2023.

He noted that the issue around the creation of the new banknotes had brought a lot of burden to the economic life of parents.

He said before the policy of the new Naira notes, parents had been paying the school fees of their children through money transfers or paying to the school’s bank account and some did pay with cash.

He said, “Now less than five per cent of the parents have been able to pay while others have not because of the scarcity of cash; network, and transferring issues.”

“Some of the staff that have collected their salary could not withdraw from the bank to pay for bills and those that have not collected theirs are lamenting.

“So, we urged the federal government to find a lasting solution to the problem so that citizens would find a relief to their socio-economic conditions,” he said.

In the same vein, the proprietress of the Keedees Foundation School, Ogba, Lagos, Mrs. Love Ogundipe, said that the scarcity of the Naira notes has no positive impact on the citizens as the federal government thought, but rather a negative effect, adding that most socio-economic transactions have been kept undone.

She enunciated that it was not a bad policy to change the look of a currency, saying that the federal government should have granted three months for the swap of the old notes with the new ones.

She said, “It is either the federal government did not calculate the social-economic effect of the policy well or the process has been sabotaged by some people.”

“I have no choice but to accept the plea from the parents but whoever is coming as our next president should not underestimate the citizens before they take any drastic decision,” she said.

The head of studies of the Royal School, Odunlami Street, Lagos Island, Mr. Adeyemo Wale, said the masses had never taken the Naira rate to Dollars as a priority but the availability of Naira notes for their daily survival has always been their first focus from any ruling government in the state.

“There is no flow of cash and citizens have not been able to transfer money since last Friday because of a bad banking network. Pupils are not happy and not focusing on their studies as it were before now because their parents don’t have money to buy them snacks anymore,” he said.