By: Vivek J
February 23 2023
False: The Central Bank of Nigeria will shut down all financial transactions from February 23 to February 27, 2023.
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Fact-Check
The Verdict False
The Central Bank of Nigeria has clarified that claims about shutting down financial transactions in view of the presidential election are fake.
Context
Nigeria is headed for presidential elections on February 25, 2023. In late 2022, the government announced that people must exchange old Naira banknotes for newly-designed notes. According to the government, this was aimed at curbing corruption and promoting a cashless society. The lack of availability of new notes has led to multiple instances of sporadic violence across the country.
Amid this, social media was flooded with misinformation about the demonetization drive and the presidential elections. One such video on TikTok claimed that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had ordered all banks to shut down online transactions for three days because of the presidential elections. We found multiple variations of the same message on Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp. However, such claims are untrue.
In Fact
We did not find any official reports or announcements about curbs on financial transactions in Nigeria during the presidential elections. Instead, we found that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has shared a screenshot of a WhatsApp forward and labeled it as fake news. The WhatsApp message read, "Special information. CBN plans to shut down financial transactions from Thursday 23 of February till 27th of February." Similar messages were also shared by Facebook and Twitter users.
CBN has shared the screenshot along with the "fake news" tag on their official handles on Facebook and Twitter. Thus, it is evident that there is no ban on financial transactions citing the presidential elections. Logically has debunked multiple narratives shared on social media in the build-up to the Nigerian presidential elections.
The Verdict
The Central Bank of Nigeria has not announced or directed banks to shut down financial transactions on account of the presidential elections in February 2023. The bank has noted that such claims of bank closure in February 2023 are fake. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.
