Banks in Enugu on Wednesday shut down all their operations in line with the directive of organized labour, which had called out civil servants on an indefinite strike over the new national minimum wage.

The leadership of labour on Tuesday went round banks which opened for business and asked them to discontinue their operations or face picketing from labour.

A correspondent of NAN, who went round Enugu metropolis,  reports that all the banks complied by closing their offices. The banks include First Bank, Diamond Bank, Oceanic Bank and First City Monument Bank on Okpara Avenue and the Garden Avenue.

However, in most of the banks customers resorted to the use of ATM to access their cash.  Mr Sunday Ugwu, a civil servant, told NAN that he had already ran out of cash due to the closure.

“For now, I don’t know what to do than to locate any  ATM machine,” he said.  Mr Richard Odoh, a trader, who visited Diamond Bank, said if not for the availability of ATM people would find things difficult.

Mrs Mary Eze, another bank customer, said the ATM queue was moving fast. “ATM is our saviour. I don’t know what we would have done without it,” she said.