Four persons, including a point-of-sales (PoS) operator, have been hospitalised with gunshot wounds after armed robbers attacked them at a PoS terminal in Zaki Local Government Area (LGA) of Bauchi State.
Following the redesign of N200, N500, and N1,000 banknotes in December 2022, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) initially gave January 31, 2023 as the deadline for the old currency to be exchanged.
However, following nationwide frenzy over the unavailability of the new notes in many towns and cities, the deadline was recently extended to February 10.
The armed men were said to have taken advantage of the rush by residents on Friday night, while they were trying to meet up with the initial deadline for cash swap of January 31st, just before the extension.
The victims were receiving treatment at the Federal Medical Centre, Azare.
Abdullahi Haruna, a PoS operator, said, “I had a bag of money with me. They asked me to give them the money at gunpoint, or else they would kill me, so I gave them the bag full of money.”
One of the other victims, Lamaran Bappah, said he went to the terminal to swap his old notes with new ones.
“It was money I saved in preparation for my marriage,” he said
