Parts of Lagos metropolis went up in uproar on Friday morning, as hoodlums, took to the streets to destroy some installations in the city, amid the inflamed passion over the unavailability of cash to purchase basic communities and engage in normal living taking.
Facilities of commercial banks were the targets of the hoodlums, who descended on their premises in places like, Ikorodu, Epe, Ojota and Agege areas of Lagos, attacking many Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), either in search of unavailable cash or simply to vent their anger.
None of the banks were spared, but reports say the hoodlums, Zenith, Key Stone, First Bank and United Bank for Africa (UBA), were mostly the target and had since temporarily suspended operations in Epe as a result of the attack.
Incidentally, the incidents, which have since been witnessed in many other states, particularly Edo and Delta, is coming a day after President Muhammadu Buhari, restored the life of the old N200 notes, affected in the currency swap move of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which began the process of phasing out the old note alongside N500 and N1,000.
The three denominations were redesigned by the apex bank, which finally pegged their expiration date as legal tenders to February 10, after the initial January 31 deadline, but following the outcries across the country that neither the old notes nor the new currencies were available and the intervention of the Supreme Court, halting the deadline, Buhari, in a nationwide address on Thursday, ordered the old N200 back into circulation for 60 days.
Regardless, rioters, citing the inability to access any form of cash from the affected banks, decided to attack the banks that were supposed to supply them.
Reports, however say that security operatives have stormed the streets to quell the situation, with normalcy returning to the affected areas, including Ojota-Mile 12 parts of the state.
On the heels of the volatile nature of the situation, which led to Access Bank ordering the total closure of operation in Lagos, the Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and other Financial Institutions (ASSBIFI) is also threatening to shut down operations across the country should the attacks on banks continue.
But the Lagos State Police Command, through its spokesman, Benjamin Hundeyin, a Superintendent of Police (SP), said the information at his disposal indicated that it was one bank that was being attacked, adding that security operatives were already on ground to handle the situation.
