Old Naira notes no more legal tender in Nigeria, CBN insists

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has declared that the old Naira Notes of N200, N500 and N1000 have ceased to be legal tender in Nigeria since the 10th of February, 2023.

The declaration was made by the Branch Controller of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Bauchi, Haladu Idris Andaza while briefing Journalists on Monday at the CBN branch in Bauchi.

The Supreme Court had in a ruling last Wednesday suspended the CBN deadline for demonetisation policy and fixed February 15 for hearing on the matter.

The new notes scarcity worsened as the initial January 31 deadline drew closer thus leading Emefiele to announce on January 30, that the apex bank, with the approval of President Muhammadu Buhari, had extended the deadline by 10 days, from the January 31st 2023 to February 10, 2023 to allow Nigerians still in possession of the old naira notes deposit such with their banks.

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In addition, he also announced a seven-day grace period, starting from February 10 to February 17, 2023 to allow Nigerians to deposit their old notes at the CBN after the February deadline when the old currency would have ceased to be legal tender.

However, Andaza in his comment said, “In the last 24 hours, we have been inundated by questions from various angles of the general public about our operational guidelines on the old currency notes, be that as it may, there are so many questions here and there which people have been asking about.”

According to him, “So for the avoidance of doubt, we wish to state categorically that CBN is ready and is open to receive all of those old notes based on certain conditions and criteria.”

“Customers are free to come to the Bank and deposit which they cannot do at the Commercial Banks anymore because the currency has ceased to be a legal tender since the 10th of this month.

Consequently, the management of the CBN decided that those customers will have a sigh of relief by coming to the offices of the CBN in all the 36 states in the Federation including FCT to deposit their money.

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Andaza further explained that “After filling the form, you generate a code, you either print it or come with it in your mobile phone, give us the code and the information contained therein. In the form, you are expected to provide all the basic information about yourself, your account details and the amount you want to deposit.

“By the time you have done it correctly, you come to the CBN where the code will be accepted from you as well as the money, process and confirm the genuineness or otherwise of the money to avoid receiving fake notes because there are some fake notes in circulation now.”

He warned that “If anyone wants to try us by bringing in fake notes, he should be ready to be arrested, so don’t go and print old fake naira notes and bring them to the CBN, whatever happens to you, don’t blame us, you caused it.”

He however assured that “We will receive the money from you and do our internal checks before we give you an acknowledgement which is evidence to show that we have collected that amount from you and we go ahead with our internal processes, after finishing with the internal processes, we now hit your account and credit it through your Commercial bank.