24th January, 2023
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Tuesday said there is no going back on the January 31st deadline on the phase out of old 200, 500 and 1,000 naira notes.
CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, who spoke at the apex bank’s Monetary Policy Committee meeting in Abuja, stated that Nigerians were given enough time to replace their old notes with new ones.
The CBN had on October 26, 2022 announced its plan to redesign the three banknotes. President Muhammadu Buhari 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.
Many Nigerians have been complaining that access to the new naira notes was scarce. Some banks were still dispensing the old notes in their ATMs few days to the deadline.
More so, many Nigerians have not set their eyes on the new N200 and N500 notes as most of the notes being dispensed by ATM machines were the new N1,000.
The apex bank had also initially pegged daily withdrawal from ATMs at N20,000 and N100,000 weekly but when there was a backlash, it pegged weekly withdrawal from ATMs at N500,000.