FAKE NEWS ALERT: No plan to shut down banking services for elections, says CBN

February 23

09:37 2023

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The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has debunked rumours of its plans to shut down banking services.

A viral broadcast message on WhatsApp claimed that the apex bank would shut down all electronic banking networks between Thursday and Monday in order to prevent vote buying in the forthcoming general election.

The message reads, “CBN plans to shut down financial transaction from Thursday 23 of February till 27th of February. Go and stock your home.

“Anyhow you can get money between today and tomorrow, get and keep it, also whatever transfer you want to do, do it between today and tomorrow, information am hearing is that, as from Thursday, bank network will go off till Sunday or Monday, so that polititian will not be able to transfer money to anybody for vote, so buy enough food at home, do ur transfer now. Because the next five days will be difficult pls.”

Reacting to the claim, the CBN, in a post via its official Twitter handle, said it was false.

It urged citizens to be on the lookout for fake news.