Three weeks after the President, Muhammadu Buhari unveiled it at a weekly Federal Executive Council meeting in Aso Rock Villa, the new naira notes have been officially released for circulation today and are already available for ATM and over-the-counter withdrawals.
Meanwhile, mixed reactions have continued to trail this new development as some bus drivers, conductors, and market women are refusing to receive the newly designed notes.
In a video currently trending on social media, a bus conductor is seen turning down the new note for fear of it being fake.
The President unveiled the redesigned notes across the N200, N500, and N1,000 denominations.
Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, had in October announced that the apex bank would release re-designed naira notes by December 15, 2022.
He also disclosed that the old notes would cease to be regarded as legal tender by January 31, 2023.
Emefiele pointed out that the redesigning of the naira notes would help to curb counterfeit notes and reduce ransom payments to terrorists and kidnappers.
The CBN boss said it was worrisome that 85 percent of the total currency in circulation was being hoarded by Nigerians.
As such, he said the redesigning of the local currency would help to mop up the currency outside the banking sector, adding that out of about N3.3tn in circulation, close to N2.75tn were outside the banking sector.
Meanwhile, top officials of commercial banks confirmed to the Punch on Wednesday they had received the new notes from the CBN a couple of days ago, adding that the redesigned currency would be released to their customers effective Thursday (today).
“We got the funds (new notes) about two days ago. Our head office has dispatched the funds to various area offices across the country. My branch will pick up our allocation at a nearby area office. We will start releasing the new notes to our customers by Thursday,” according to a top official of a commercial bank who spoke to one of our correspondents on condition of anonymity on Wednesday because he was not authorised to speak on the matter.
According to the Punch, multiple banking sources also said the new notes had arrived and were being kept in their vaults. They confirmed the new notes would be paid to customers in banking halls beginning from Thursday.
- Tags: Buhari, CBN, New naira notes
