The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has extended the swapping of old naira notes for the new ones by ten days.
It therefore means that Nigerians still have till February 10 to spend the old notes.
Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele, made the announcement on Sunday in a statement.
He added, however, that Nigerians still had up to February 17, 2023 to deposit their old notes.
He described the additional days for the deposit as “grace period.”
His words: “Based on the foregoing, we have sought and obtained Mr President’s approval for the following: a 10-day extension of the deadline from January 31, 2023, to February 10, 2023; to allow for collection of more old notes legitimately held by Nigerians and achieve more success in cash swap in our rural communities after which all old notes outside the CBN loses their Legal Tender Status.
“Our CBN staff currently on mass mobilisation and monitoring together with officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission will work together to achieve these objectives.
“A seven-day grace period, beginning from February 10 to February 17, 2023, in compliance with Sections 20(3) and 22 of the CBN Act, allowing Nigerians to deposit their old notes at the CBN after the February deadline when the old currency would have lost its Legal Tender status.”
It would be recalled that there have been complaints by Nigerians about the difficulty in meeting the initial January 31 deadline for the use of the old notes.
President Muhammadu Buhari, had on Saturday, gave an indication that the government would work towards putting an end to the pains being experience by Nigerians as a result of the difficulty in getting the new notes of N200, N500 and N1000.
He assured that the government would ensure that citizens were unharmed in their businesses and no disruption was caused to the entire supply chain arising from the currency swap due to end shortly.
Reacting to reports of long queues of people waiting for hours for their turn to deposit old notes and get new ones, triggering public anger and opposition’s criticism, Buhari reiterated that the currency changes were aimed at people hoarding illicit funds and not the common man, and that it had become necessary to prevent counterfeits, corruption, and terrorist funding.
That, he assured, would stabilize and strengthen the economy.
While taking note that the poorest section of society was facing hardship as they often kept hard cash at home for various expenses, President Buhari gave strong assurances that the government would not leave them to their own fate.
He reiterated that a number of initiatives by the Central Bank and all commercial banks were underway to speed up distribution of the new notes and do all that was necessary to forestall cash squeeze and chaos.
