By Okeleye Solomon A
Recently, Commercial banks in Nigeria restricted the
accounts of their customers and they told us they are acting on the directives
of the CBN that all customers must have BVN (Bank Verification number) however,
they did not provide us with an enrollment centre here in Georgia (Europe).
We
were told that the approximately 2,000 GTB none resident Nigerian clients
residing here in Georgia (Europe) should travel to Dubai or Ukraine which are
the nearest BVN enrollment centre for us to get BVN done.
We let them realize
that making a trip to any of these countries would cost us about 2,000 USD, plus
most of us are students and we can't afford that. Please help us tell CBN to
give us an enrollment centre or lift the restriction on our account.
There is a case at hand of a Nigerian here who is having
health challenges and could not withdraw money from his GTB account to pay his
hospital bill. This guy has been denied treatment because of his inability to
withdraw the money his parents sent to him to cater for his hospital bill. We
called GTB, we wrote to them and explained the critical situation of this guy,
all they did was to send us apologies.
Students who has rents, school fees and upkeep in their
account could not withdraw their money in the name of BVN which CBN could not
provide for us. Attached here is the list of BVN enrollment centers in the
world, could you believe there are less than 50 with about 10 centers in the
USA alone, 5 in UK, 5 in Australia, 3 in the whole of China and etc?
CBN has forgotten that there are Nigerians doing business
from from Nigeria to other parts of the world and vise versa. Why should the
policy makers in our country impose laws that will claim lives and lead to the
downfall of the economic prosperity of their own people and nation at large?
We have pleaded with GTB who should be responsible for
negotiating enrollment centers for her oversea client, we have argue the case of
the guy with health challenges, they refused to oblige. We have resorted to
make the media our last hope. Please help us communicate our grief to the
appropriate quarters.
May i also inform you that this is the 3rd month we have
informed Nigerian Embassy in Ukraine to come and renew the international
passport of about 200 Nigerians whose details has been sent to them and they
still did not show up. They kept telling us they are waiting for response from
Abuja. Nigerian Embassy in Ukraine has been given the sole responsibility to
cover Georgia and some other countries in Eastern Europe, but their negligence
is immeasurable. We have addressed the embassy on different challenges
Nigerians are posed with including those like denial of rights and systemic
discrimination from local organizations and parastatals here in Georgia, yet they
have never for once intervene.
As i am writing to you, there are Nigerians in detention
camps here simply because their international passport expired and they can not
apply for renewal of their visa because of expired international passport.
Nigerians are stranded and can't even move on the street, some are afraid of
going to school and so on because their passport has expired.
Below is the list of the enrollment centers all around the
world
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