Borno State Governor, Babagana Umara Zulum, disclosed that 25 local government areas out of 27 lack the new Naira notes.

He directed the state Ministry of Finance and that of Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation to establish branches of Borno’s existing Microfinance Bank, and ICT centres across the 27 local government areas.

Zulum’s directive followed the Central Bank of Nigeria’s 31 January deadline to phase out the old naira notes.

The governor made this disclosure on Wednesday in Maiduguri during an extraordinary meeting with stakeholders.

He lamented, At the moment we only have two LGAs with banking services and these are Maiduguri and Biu. The distance from most of the local governments to either Maiduguri or Biu is too long.

He added that government officials should do everything to ensure citizens’ money is not lost.