FG okays full resumption of operations by banks

The Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 (PTF) on Thursday said all banks have been asked to resume fully in Nigeria.

“We (PTF) have said banks can fully resume,” PTF national coordinator Sani Aliyu said.

“They no longer have to select the branches to open.”

Businesses, excluding essentials, were shut in Lagos, Ogun, and the country’s capital city Abuja when the coronavirus cases surged in these states.

President Muhammadu Buhari announced a lockdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

After five-week of the lockdown of FCT, Lagos and Ogun State the Nigerian government in April announced guidelines for a gradual return to normalcy nationwide.

Government offices, banks, and other business concerns were asked to resume Monday, May 4, 2020, with their operations in compliance with the government’s COVID-19 prevention guidelines.

Banks were asked to open from 8 am to 2 pm daily while observing the new restrictions put in place by the government.

“That is six hours but there will be the usual restrictions. For instance, self-distancing and the use of temperature monitors, hand hygiene and making sure the capacities of banking halls are restricted so that people do not come together,” Aliyu said in May.

In the early days of the virus in Nigeria, a few bank branches were shut after they were visited by persons who contracted the virus.

With the lockdown, and later the partial lockdown in place, banks scaled down on the number of branches opened for businesses and streamlined their operations.

This occasioned longer queues and, sometimes, raucous scenes outside bank buildings.

Nigeria has confirmed over 44,890 cases of coronavirus according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) with 457 new cases as at Wednesday.

NCDC said 32,165 coronavirus patients have been treated and discharged while 927 persons have died of the virus across 36 states of the country. (The Guardian)