Naira redesign: Zulum orders finance ministry to establish new bank branches in Borno

Babagana Zulum, Borno governor, has directed the state’s ministry of finance to hastily establish branches of Borno’s existing microfinance bank across all the 27 local government areas (LGAs).

Zulum, who said the directive was in accordance with regulatory procedures, also ordered the ministry of higher education, science, technology and innovation to set up ICT centres in the LGAs.

He announced the measures on Wednesday in Maiduguri during an ‘extraordinary’ stakeholders meeting.

The meeting had in attendance members of the Borno state house of assembly, commissioners, advisers, local government chairmen and other critical stakeholders.

According to Zulum, the directive became necessary following the CBN’s Jan 31 deadline for validity of old naira notes as well as the absence of banking services across 25 out of Borno’s 27 LGAs due to over 12 years of insurgency.

He said the establishment of the branches of the microfinance bank should start this week in Monguno and Gwoza LGAs.

“At the moment we only have two LGAs with banking services and these are Maiduguri and Biu. The distance from most of the local governments to either Maiduguri or Biu is too long,” Zulum said.

“Despite a great improvement of the security in Borno, there are still challenges for banks to start operations.

“Banking is a very delicate industry and I am sure none of them is willing to take the risk of establishing branches in our LGAs for now.

“Therefore, to support our people, Borno state government has to take the risk. I have directed the ministry of finance to ensure the recapitalisation of Borno Renaissance Microfinance Bank to qualify it to have the capacity to open branches in all the 27 LGAs.

“This, I believe will greatly alleviate the suffering of our people.”

Zulum also instructed the finance ministry to immediately come up with a template to organise and ensure people in rural communities deposit their old naira notes before the January 31 deadline.

“I have convened this meeting to discuss how our people in the villages can get easy windows of depositing their money to the bank accounts as stipulated in the CBN’s new policy,” he said.

“The ministry of finance is hereby directed to mobilise the people and ensure nobody loses his money, you should facilitate ways through which people can voluntarily deposit their money into the banks in the remaining days.”

The politician also directed the ministry of higher education, science, technology and innovation to support mobile telecommunication providers toward improving their network coverage for internet connectivity across all the 27 LGAs in the state.