Nigeria’s Central Bank Dragged To Court Over ATM Charge

A Nigerian Rights Activist has asked the country’s federal high court to restrain the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) from further implementing its reintroduced N65 on cash withdrawal from others’ banks’ ATMs.

The apex bank, under the administration of the newly appointed Governor Godwin Emefiele, had on August 13 announced that customers who make cash withdrawals from the ATM of banks other than theirs would be charged N65 at the fourth withdrawal within a month. Emefiele’s predecessor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi had two years ago abolished a N100 charge per withdrawal that used to be in place.

Although the new policy took effect nationwide on September 1, campaigns for it to be stopped are still mounting. Timi Frank, who filed the case against the CBN, said in a court filing that that “the decision by the CBN governor to reintroduce charges of cash withdrawal from ATM was “retrogressive and a negation of the cashless policy currently being propagated by the CBN.” He contended that such charges were not only discriminatory against the poor, but capable of discouraging savings on the part of the low income earners.

VENTURES Africa,  Onyedimmakachukwu reports that the suit, initiated via a writ of summons, filed on September 18 by Frank’s lawyer, Olugbenga Adeyemi, has the CBN and Emefiele as defendants and seeks a perpetual injunction restraining the defendants and their agents from engaging in further implementation and deduction of the N65 charges and an order setting aside the directive reintroducing the charges. No date is set yet for the hearing of the case.