The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has dissociated itself from a viral rumour that it plans to halt financial transactions between February 23 and 27 2023.
A viral WhatsApp message has claimed that the CBN will shut down banks during the period, in order to prevent Vote-buying.
“CBN plans to shut down financial transaction from Thursday, 23rd 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 I’m hearing is that, as of Thursday, bank networks will go off till Sunday or Monday, so that politicians will not be able to transfer money to anybody for vote. So buy enough food at home, do your transfer now because the next five days will be difficult please,” the WhatsApp message reads.
However, the CBN on its Instagram page <centralbankng>, on Wednesday, shared a copy of the message, stamped “FAKE NEWS”.
Since the introduction of the Naira redesign policy, fake news has continued to litter the social media space with unsuspecting public falling for it.
