85% of Jigawa residents are unbanked – CBN

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said that with an estimated population of 6.7 million people, Jigawa State is among the most financially excluded states in the country, with a mere 10-15 per cent of the population enjoying banking services.

The Head of Development Finance Unit of the Dutse Branch of the CBN, Malam Abdu Ahmadu, disclosed this on Monday at the flag-off of a weeklong sensitization campaign on digital financial inclusion among women and youths in the state.

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Ahmadu said the weeklong campaign was aimed at integrating the excluded groups into the system to enable them to have access to banking facilities.

He expressed confidence that at the end of the exercise, accessing banking services among the targeted groups would have risen to 25 – 30 per cent in the state.

“We have already developed a jingle plan, even though in the English language, I hope the media will be of importance to us in translating it into the Hausa language for easy understanding of the local people.

“So we hope to collaborate with the media to achieve this objective,” he said.