The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Wednesday urged Nigerians to embrace the new cashless policy of the bank to enhance economic growth.
Mr Aaron Yeduma of the Shared Services Department in CBN, Abuja, made the call during the bank’s sensitisation workshop on cashless policy in Lafia.
Addressing the participants, Yeduma described the policy as long overdue for the Nigerian economy to embrace global best economic and financial practices.
He said the advantages of the policy included fostering transparency and curbing corruption and modernisation of the country’s payment system.
Other advantages, according to him, are reduction in cost of banking services, reduction of risks and armed robbery as well as meeting the challenges of Vision: 2020.
Yeduma enjoined the people of Nasarawa State to embrace the policy.
“We want the state to embrace the policy as it is coming to Nasarawa State now because at the end of the day if Nasarawa State does not embrace like other states have done, they will be left behind.
“A time will come that you will just be isolated; you will just look like you are not part of Nigeria,” he said.
He said that the policy was already operational in Lagos, Kano and Rivers as well as Abuja, among other areas.
Yeduma said the bank had up to July this year to commence the implementation in all the states of the federation.
Yeduma advised residents in Nasarawa State to embrace the policy or be left behind in the fast changing world.
Earlier, Gov. Umaru Al-Makura, who was represented by the state Commissioner for Tourism and Commerce, Mr Emmanuel Yaji, described the policy as timely and assured of government’s support to make it succeed in the state.
Al-Makura pledged that the state could not be left behind as some states had already started implementing the policy.
He advised residents to adopt the policy in view of its importance to the economic development of the state.
“We urge the CBN and facilitators of the workshop to go the hinterlands to also sensitise our villagers and farmers so that they can know the importance of the policy and understand how it works,” he said.
Alhaji Isiaka Dauda, the Madakin Lafia and a participant at the workshop, commended CBN for introducing the policy and promised to encourage its implementation in the state. (NAN)
