The old 200, 500, and 1,000 naira notes will stop being accepted as legal tender in Nigeria as of January 31. The Central Bank of Nigeria has stated that there is no going back on this date.
Following the Tuesday meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee in Abuja, CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele reaffirmed the position of the top bank.
In addition, Emefiele insisted that Nigerians had been given adequate time to exchange their old notes for new ones.

This is as he also said that kidnapping and ransom-taking had reduced since the three banknotes were redesigned.

However, a lot of Nigerians have lamented the lack of availability and shortage of the new notes, criticizing banks for still handing out old naira notes to consumers as of today despite the deadline being just a few days away.

In the meantime, the CBN launched a nationwide cash swap program to allow those who don’t have access to banks to exchange their old bills before the deadline of January 31. However, the program excludes Lagos and Abuja mobile money/Point of Sales operators in order to ensure that everyone is carried along.

In order to increase the circulation of the redesigned naira notes, the CBN recently instructed commercial banks to immediately suspend over-the-counter withdrawal of the new notes and load their automated teller machines with them.

However, despite the efforts of the apex bank, bank customers have continued to lament the scarcity of the new notes

In a related development, The PUNCH reported that the House of Representatives, on Tuesday, 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.

The CBN on October 26, 2022 had announced its plan to redesign the three banknotes. The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), subsequently unveiled the redesigned N200, N500 and N1,000 notes on November 23, 2022, while the apex bank fixed January 31 deadline for the validity of the old notes

Follow us here  for more news in Oyo State.

Oyo Truth is an independent online news platform/medium reporting up-to-date events, happenings and activities related to Oyo State, Nigeria.