Punch reports:
As dollar scarcity worsens in Nigeria,
parents who have children schooling abroad have taken their frustrations to
banks, with some of them weeping openly, as Saturday Punch observed.
Investigations by our correspondents
revealed that the frustrations by some parents who cannot access forex to send
to their children abroad have brought out their emotional sides, while affected
students have been crying out for help in foreign lands.
When one of our correspondents visited some
banks along Muritala Muhammed Way, Unity Road and Taiwo Road in Ilorin, the
Kwara State capital, on Wednesday and Thursday, some bank customers, who were
there to buy dollars, expressed disappointments at the scarcity of the
currency.
One of the customers, Alhaja Salamatu
Ajibola, who practically broke down in tears, lamented that the education of
her two children schooling in the United States had been threatened by the
development.
She added that her children had been going
without food due to her inability to send them money for their upkeep.
Ajibola said that it had been difficult for
her to send her children dollars for their personal and educational needs. She
said she had visited one of the banks several times, hoping to send dollars to
her children, only to be told that the currency was insufficient to meet
customers’ demands.
Another tearful parent, who spoke to Saturday Punch on the
condition of anonymity, in a first generation bank in Bauchi State, said it had
become impossible for him to meet the financial needs of his children schooling
abroad.
She said she was seeking other ways of
sending money abroad due to the difficulty she was facing in getting dollars to
send to her children.
“Our children abroad are crying and we
parents are also crying,” she said.
“They are confused and we are also confused
because we can’t send money to them and they can’t receive. They are in misery,
hunger and depression.
“They can’t even feed well because they
can’t get money for their upkeep.”
She, therefore, called on the government to
“create an escape route so that children will not continue to suffer.”
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