Obaseki Requests Calm Regarding Edo Protests Related To Naira Scarcity

After demonstrations about the lack of naira notes, Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki has advised residents to remain calm.

After a private meeting with the state’s security agency leaders on Wednesday, Obaseki announced the announcement to the media at the Government House in Benin City.

We just finished our security council meeting over the incident that happened in our city today, he said. We are both concerned and deeply saddened by it. It is simply the culmination of the aches and pains that our countrymen have conveyed.

“As a government, we did everything we could to ensure that citizens could withdraw money put in their accounts. Unfortunately, this did not go as planned, which caused some agitation and concern among city residents.

We can easily infer from what transpired today that those responsible for the destruction to banks and banking assets were not depositors because many of them were local boys. We came together and decided to reestablish security for the government and financial institutions. To maintain calm, security personnel have been dispatched and will stay in the banking facility.

“We are applying pressure on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) authorities to do what they should do to release cash to citizens and have requested security to do so,” the governor continued.

The idea is that starting tomorrow morning, security personnel will facilitate the distribution of cash through POS operators in our marketplaces, and that the banks will reopen to distribute cash to customers as soon as they can ensure the security and sanity of the banks.

To prevent things from spiraling out of control, we urge all residents to exercise caution and ensure that the situation is not hijacked. We understand the suffering of our people, and as a government, we will keep trying to make things better for them.