Cephas Iorhemen 
Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, yesterday threw his weight behind the Senate’s call for an extension of the deadline for withdrawal date of the old naira notes from January 31 to July 31. The Upper Chamber of the National Assembly had also urged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to open an exchange window where people that do not have bank accounts to deposit their old notes to do so.
The governor, who bared his mind in Makurdi, the state capital, lamented the impact nonextension of the deadline could cause people at the grassroots level, hence the propensity for the extension. He said: “I don’t have problems with the withdrawal limits, but what about the man in the village? So I joined the Senate in calling on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and management and the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to do something about this because the buck is on his table. “Let them look at this very critically so that we don’t throw Nigerians into more hardship and problems. “Our people are already distressed in this country, everybody knows, economic hardship, banditry, killings and all that have made life very tough for everybody. “Maybe Mr. President is not aware, let him be aware that people are going through pains in this country and if we don’t say it, we are liars,” Ortom said.
