Godwin Emefiele the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Governor has reiterated that there is no going back on the January 31 deadline for the old 200, 500 and 1,000 naira notes expiry date as legal tender in the country.
Emefiele spoke after the Monetary Policy Committee meeting in Abuja on Tuesday.
He also insisted that enough time had been given to Nigerians to swap their old naira notes for new ones and that kidnapping and ransom-taking had reduced since the three banknotes were redesigned.
In recent times, the CBN in its efforts to ensure that everyone is carried along embarked on a cash swap programme nationwide to enable those in the unbanked areas to exchange their old notes before the January 31 deadline, however, excluding Lagos and Abuja mobile money/Point of Sales operators from the programme.
The CBN also ordered commercial banks to immediately stop over-the-counter withdrawal of the new notes and load their Automated Teller Machines with the redesigned naira notes to boost its circulation even as bank customers have continued to lament the scarcity of the new notes
The House of Representatives, yesterday, summoned commercial banks over the scarcity of new naira notes.
The Managing Directors/Chief Executive Officers of the banks, under the auspices of the Bankers’ Committee, are to meet with an ad hoc committee of the House to be chaired by the Majority Leader, Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, on Wednesday (tomorrow).
The meeting is for the banks to explain the alleged supply shortage from the Central Bank of Nigeria, after which the lawmakers would invite the leadership of the apex bank for questioning.
The House further resolved that the window for swapping the old notes with the new ones be extended by six months.
Meanwhile, the Senate on Tuesday similarly appealed to the apex bank to extend the deadline by six months as well, from January 31 to July 31, 2023.
