Central Bank of Nigeria governor, Godwin Emefiele said the introduction of new designs of the naira notes will shore up its value and reduce inflation.
The CBN announced Wednesday that the N200, N500, and N1,000 notes would wear a new face and will go into circulation by December 15, 2023. Nigerians have 100 days to change to the new notes. The old ones will cease to be legal tenders by February 1, 2023.
“The issue is that, as you have heard, as of September 2022, we had N3.23 trillion naira in circulation; out of that, N2.73 trillion is outside the vaults of the banks. So, first of all, we want to mop all the N3.23 trillion back into the CBN so we can retake control of the money supply and see how this will help rein in inflation. No doubt we believe it has a positive impact on inflation.”
Responding to the question of whether the decision to redesign the new notes will impact the value of the naira, the governor said, “well, I do not want just easily to admit that that will happen, but we suspect that this will happen and that it will positively impact the value of the naira because we don’t want to do any speculation,” Emefiele said
Nigerian Godwin Emefiele gave Nigerians 100 days to return the old money to the bank. If nothing changes, the old naira will not be an acceptable legal tender by February 1, 2023.
He said the timeline for mopping up old notes is adequate: “I will say today is the 27th, so we have 6 or 7 days until the end of October, till January 31, 2023, which is almost 100days. I think that is adequate to mop up the currency in circulation back to the vaults of the CBN.”
