The Central Bank of Nigeria said Tuesday there would be no shifting of the January 31 deadline for the old 200, 500 and 1,000 naira notes. The CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele who presided over a meeting of the bank’s Monetary Policy Committee meeting in Abuja on Tuesday, said the old naira notes would cease to be legal tender after Monday January 31. He added that enough time was given by the CBN for Nigerians to deposit their old notes. “I must say here that unfortunately, I don’t have good news for those who feel that we should shift the deadline. My apologies,” said the CBN boss. “The reason is because just like the President has said on more than two occasions and even to people privately, that for us, 90 days, in fact, we feel it is 100 days, that it is enough for anyone who has money or the old currency to deposit it in the bank. And we took every measure to ensure all the banks remain open to receive all old currencies. “100 days we believe is more than adequate. We called on the banks, not only are we requesting you to extend your banking hours so that you can receive old currencies, but we are also asking you to keep your doors open on Saturdays, ladies and gentlemen, the banks did not even have any reasons to even keep their banking halls open on Saturdays neither did they see the kind of rush that they anticipated. “We do not see any reason to begin to talk about a shift because people could not deposit their old monies into their banks.”
He added that the CBN has 1.4 million super agents nationwide to collect old naira notes in exchange for new notes in riverine and upland areas, saying: “We have 1.4 million points of our super agents; those agents are going to be available to conduct cash exchanges. The super agents are like kiosks, shops in your community, whether it is a riverine or upland area, they are there, selling sweets, selling kola nuts but they have been appointed as agents that will do cash exchange and cash swap for you. This, we have put in place,” he said.
