The Cameroonian CFA thrived during the weekend in the Adamawa State international commercial nerve centre, Mubi, as the scarcity of newly redesigned Naira notes persisted.
This came before the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, announced extension of the deadline to February 10.
Mubi, which lies on the northern tip of Adamawa State and shares an extensive borderline with Cameroon, has for decades enjoyed the status of an international business meeting point, with the Mubi International Cattle Market being the main puller of crowds from the rest of Nigeria and from neighbouring Cameroon.
Thus, the town has for decades produced rich cattle merchants, as well as dealers in other commodities such as foodstuff, building materials, and vehicles.
Illegal trade in oil, by which much of Nigeria’s petroleum products get transported into Cameroon, also thrives around the Mubi axis.
DAILY POST gathered on Sunday that traders in Mubi at the weekend preferred Cameroonian CFA over old Naira notes, especially before the Sunday announcement of extension of old Naira use deadline by the CBN.
A merchant in the Mubi Cattle Market and Chairman of the market association, Jafaru Hamman, said that in the market, cattle owners chose the CFA over Nigeria’s old N1000, N500 and N200 notes.
Explaining the difficulty of getting the newly redesigned notes, the market leader said POS operators were charging as much as N1000 for every N10,000 requested from them.
He said, “On every withdrawal of N1 million, I lose N100,000. Because of this, I travelled to Kano in search of the new notes, yet I didn’t get any.
“Because of the scarcity of Naira, our customers prefer Cameroon currency.”
