The Central Bank of Nigeria has been encouraged by the Senate to quickly move up the deadline for the withdrawal of obsolete banknotes from January 31, 2023, to June 31, 2023.
Senator Mohammed Ndume raised a point of order during Wednesday’s plenary that led to the upper chamber’s resolution.
The 200, 500, and 1,000 naira notes will be reprinted on Oct. 26, according to The News Agency of Nigeria.
Following the apex bank’s announcement, President Muhammadu Buhari unveiled the newly redesigned naira notes.
Ndume cited Senate Standing Rules 41 and 51 in his argument that the request for a date extension should be treated as a matter of urgent national interest in order to prevent impending hardship for Nigerians.
According to Ndume, “This senate notes that many Nigerian banks on Thursday, Dec. 15, opened their vaults to customers and depositors to exchange their old currency notes for the newly redesigned currency notes which has a stipulated deadline of Jan. 31.
“Some Nigerians are already envisaging long queues in the banking hall across the country as a result of people trying to get access to the new naira notes.
“The old notes are expected to be in circulation along the new ones until Jan. 31 when the old ones are expected to be phased out.
“It is expected that many Nigerian businesses will start to rid the old notes as soon as banks start paying redesigned notes to customers.”
The lawmaker also said that access to the new notes would be compounded by recent circular by the CBN which limited the amount of cash withdrawal by corporate entities to withdraw within a certain period of time.
He said: “The withdrawal of old notes from circulation if not extended beyond Jan. 31, many Nigerians will be thrown into hardship and to avoid the repeat of 1984 experience withdrawal of old notes.”
Contributing, Sen. Adamu Aliero (PDP-Kebbi) said that it was true that in rural areas, people were not even aware that there was going to be currency change.
“So this motion is very apt and timely. If we insist on the date given by CBN, it will cause a lot of hardship for our rural dwellers.
“Majority of our people live in rural areas where there are no banks and PoS. It is appropriate we extend the time as suggested in the motion,” Aliero said.
