“If you do not have the new naira notes, avoid public transport because everyone is angry.”
Some angry youths, on Wednesday, set ablaze some commercial banks on Wednesday in some Nigerian cities as tension continued to grow over the scarcity of the newly redesigned N200, N500, and N1,000 currency notes.
Police spokesperson in Delta State, Bright Edafe, in a Twitter post on Wednesday, said some youths set ablaze two banks and two vehicles in Udu Local Government Area in the state.
Delta State is in South-south Nigeria.
The vehicles were set ablaze at a road junction in Udu, according to a report by the News Agency of Nigeria.
“We have arrested nine suspects so far,” Mr Edafe said. “Some persons will still call this protest,” he added, apparently disapproving of the action taken by the youths.
The police spokesperson disclosed that around 6:14 p.m. that normalcy had been restored in the area. “Everything is calm now,” he said.
In Benin City, Edo State, rioters attacked a “good number” of banks, including Ecobank, Firstbank and UBA, according to the police spokesperson in the state, Chidi Nwabuzor.
“They entered into the banks’ premises, destroyed the ATM machines, the buildings, window glasses and others,” he said.
The police stopped the rioters from destroying vehicles of road users, Mr Nwabuzor, a superintendent of police, said.
A clip on the Benin riot circulating on social media captured a panicked Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) worker crying out of fear as the police fired teargas at the rioters who attempted to invade the bank.
Mr Nwabuzor said the police, including other security agencies, were out on the streets to quell the riot.
He said people were using old videos of the Endsars protests to mislead Internet users to think that some people had been killed during the riot.
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