….Old Notes’ Legality Deadline Remains Sacrosanct – CBN
President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday unveiled the redesigned N200, N500 and N1,000 Notes shortly before the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
The launching of the new Notes came barely 24 hours after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) told the public that the President would perform the duty in furtherance of the apex bank’s sustained efforts to sanitize the financial system from all forms of abuses.
Briefing State House correspondents after the brief ceremony, the apex bank governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, said that the monetary initiative was in line with global best practices, which require that a national currency should be redesigned and re-issued between five and eight years.
He lauded the President for supporting the redesigning of the national currency, especially when past efforts over the last 19 years to change the outlook of the currency did not yield desired result due to lack of political will from the past leaders.
Following the successful redesigning of the Naira notes, Emefiele assured that henceforth, the exercise would take place after five to eight years.
He pledged: “After today, the CBN will begin to redesign and reissue the naira for every five to eight years.”
The CBN governor maintained that as the drive to transform Nigeria into a cashless economy continued to gather momentum, security agencies would be monitoring cash withdrawal at the counter to know how much withdrawn money is actually being used for transactions.
While debunking the insinuation that the Naira notes redesigning is targeted at some people, Emefiele said the CBN was determined to ensure that the provisions of the law on volume of money a person should carry is followed.
Emefiele said: “The world has moved to cashless economy and the CBN has moved to cashless economy. We will restrain the volume of cash someone will withdraw over the counter. We will follow up with the person’s data to know the reason for such withdrawal.
“We will not go with people that want extension of time. From today, this currency that was re-issued will become a legal tender”, the CBN governor added.
He promised that the apex bank would intensify the monitoring process of cash withdrawals to ensure that the volume of cash that people can withdraw over the counter complies with the regulatory benchmarks, adding that “the EFCC is also to monitor the purpose of any heavy transactions.”
On journalists’ concerns about the possibility of counterfeiting the new currencies, Emefiele assured: “The redesigned currency notes can never be counterfeited. The CBN will redesign the notes every five or eight years.”
