CBN ex-director urges Emefiele to enforce provision of mint for customers

• NSM tasks scientists on solution to pandemic
A former Assistant director at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Solomon Omoyeni, yesterday stated that physical cash handling of dirty notes increases vulnerability of people contracting and transmitting Coronavirus.

In an open letter to Governor of CBN, Godwin Emefiele, he urged the apex bank to prevail on commercial banks to issue new notes to their customers.

He said Nigerians were worried seeing dirty notes being issued to customers across the country, adding, “The world over is passing through a period of an infectious strange disease called Coronavirus. I appreciate the control measures taken by governments, especially the Lagos State Government to curtail spread of the virus.

“It should be stressed that physical cash handling of dirty notes put bacteria on customers and could be transmitted to other people.

“As every stakeholder is enjoyed to take precautionary measures to combat the spread of the virus, as a concerned senior citizen, I appeal to the Governor of the CBN to always issue new notes and enforce its issuance in banks during this trying period.”

Meanwhile, the Nigerian Society of Microbiology (NSM) has charged scientists, especially microbiologists, molecular biologists and virologists to proffer solutions that would bring a cure to the Coronavirus pandemic.

It charged scientists in the country to interact with each other globally in all areas associated with the disease to ensure a good understanding and disclosure of the pandemic.

President of the Society, Professor Mohammed Yerima, in a statement issued in Abuja by the Virology Representative of the society, Dr. Ahmed Babangida Suleiman, commended the federal and state governments for the steps so far taken to implement strategies that would reduce infection of the virus.

The society argued that as a multi-ethnic and religious country, Nigeria has inadequate healthcare facilities and few experts, adding that extra measures were required to educate and sensitise the people with a view to curbing the COVID-19 menace.