Four persons, including a point-of-sales (PoS) operator, have been hospitalised with gunshot wounds after armed robbers attacked them at a PoS terminal in Zaki Local Government Area (LGA) of Bauchi State.

The armed men were said to have taken advantage of the rush by residents on Friday night, while they were trying to meet up with the initial deadline for cash swap of January 31, just before the extension.

This comes after the redesigned N200, N500, and N1,000 banknotes were unveiled in December 2022, weeks before the January 31, 2023 deadline for old currency to be exchanged.

However, with the ensuing nationwide frenzy over the unavailability of the new notes in many towns and cities, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) extended the deadline to February 10.

The victims are receiving treatment at the Federal Medical Centre, Azare.

Abdullahi Haruna, a PoS operator, said, “I had a bag of money with me. They asked me to give them the money at gunpoint, or else they would kill me, so I gave them the bag full of money.”

One of the other victims, Lamaran Bappah, said he went to the terminal to swap his old notes with new ones.

“It was money I saved in preparation for my marriage,” he said.

Bauchi State Governor Bala Mohammed visited the victims in the hospital where he sympathised with them.

The Commissioner of Police in the state, Aminu Alhassan, also noted that an arrest had been made.

The governor and his team were also at the scene of an explosion caused by dynamites at a construction warehouse in Azare.

Properties were destroyed but no casualty was recorded. More dynamites have since been found on the site as the police expand their search of the area.

Meanwhile, the governor paid a visit to the palace of the Emir of Katagum and the District Head of Zaki to commiserate with them over the incidents.