The civil unrest following the nationwide naira scarcity has now spread to Nigeria’s economic capital, Lagos.
Pandemonium broke out in some parts of the state in the early hours of Friday, February 17, 2023, as some aggrieved persons suspected to be hoodlums stormed major roads in protest of the naira scarcity.
The protesters first stormed Mile-12, Ketu, Ojota along Ikorodu Road, and Iyana-Ipaja areas around 6.am.
The protest later spread to Agege, Ikorodu, Iyana Iba, Lagos Island, and other parts of the state.
Motorists and residents who were on their way to different places of work hurriedly turned back in panic as the rioters went berserk with bonfire set across on various roads.
Across the border in Ogun State, pandemonium broke out in some communities on as angry youths protested the lingering new naira policy and fuel scarcity.
The protesters barricaded the Mowe end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and turned back motorists and travellers.
“They are burning tyres everywhere. I had to abort my trip to Lagos and return home,” an engineer resident in the Mowe area told News Express on phone.
There is been a growing anger over the cash crisis resulting from the currency redesign policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which boiled over on Wednesday as protesting customers torched banks and destroyed Automated Teller Machines in Edo and Delta states.
The Supreme Court has said that its February 8 order restraining the Federal Government and its agencies from enforcing the February 10 deadline for the use of old N200, N500 and N1000 naira notes still subsists.
The court made the clarification on Wednesday following a complaint by the counsel to Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara states, Abdulhakeem Mustapha, SAN, that the Federal Government and its agencies had failed to comply with the order and had allegedly directed the rejection of the old notes.
However, in a nationwide address, President Muhammadu Buhari, On Thursday, approved that only the old N200 notes should co-exist with the new notes for 60 days, emphasizing that the old N500 and N1,000 notes are no longer legal tender.
Credit: NEWS EXPRESS with additional reports by Vanguard and The Nation.
