The Senate has urged the Central Bank of Nigeria to swiftly push back the deadline for obsolete Naira notes to be withdrawn from circulation from January 31 to June 30, 2023.
Sen. Mohammed Ndume (APC-Borno) raised a point of order at the Senate’s plenary on Wednesday, which led to the resolution.
The 200, 500, and 1,000 naira notes will be redesigned, the CBN stated on October 26.
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Ndume cited Senate Standing Rules 41 and 51 in his argument that the request for a date extension should be treated as a matter of urgent national interest in order to prevent impending hardship for Nigerians.
Ndume said;
This senate notes that many Nigerian banks on Thursday, December 15, opened their vaults to customers and depositors to exchange their old currency for the newly redesigned currency which has a stipulated deadline of January 31.
Some Nigerians are already envisaging long queues in the banking hall across the country as a result of people trying to get access to the new naira note.
The old notes are expected to be in circulation along the new ones until January 31 when the old ones are expected to be phased out.
It is expected that many Nigerian businesses will start to rig the old notes as soon as banks start paying redesigned notes to customers.
The lawmaker also said that access to the new notes would be compounded by recent circular by the CBN which limited the amount of cash withdrawal by corporate entities to withdraw within certain period of time.
He stated;
The withdrawal of old notes from circulation if not extended beyond 31, many Nigerians will be thrown into hardship and to avoid the repeat of 1984 experience withdrawal of old Naira notes.
Contributing Senator Adamu Aliero (PDP-Kebbi) said that it was true that in rural areas, people were not even aware that there was going to be currency change.
So this motion is very apt and timely. If we insist on the date given by CBN, it will cause a lot of hardship for our rural dwellers.
Majority of our people live in rural areas where there are no banks and PoS. It is appropriate we extend the time as suggested in the motion.
