New Naira Notes: Senate Urges CBN To Shift Deadline To June 30

The Senate, yesterday, urged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), to extend the deadline for withdrawal of old naira notes from circulation from January 31, 2023 to June 30.
The CBN had, last month, announced that the N1,000, N500 and N200 notes would be re- designed in new colours and its proposed withdrawal of the old notes from circulation from December 15, 2022 to January 31, 2023 when they would no longer be legal tender.
But the Senate sequel to a motion sponsored by Senator Ali Ndume (APC – Borno South), urged the apex bank to extend the deadline to June 30, next year.
Ndume, in his lead debate on the motion, entitled: “Urgent need to extend the withdrawal of old currency from circulation,” noted that the timing of the Naira redesign policy was wrong and that since the beginning of the implementation of the policy, the new notes are not in circulation even in cities not to talk of the villages.
Ndume said: “Senate notes that many Nigerian banks on Thursday, December 15, 2022 open their vault to customers and depositors to exchange their old naira notes for the newly redesigned currency, which has a stipulated deadline of January 31, 2023.
“Aware that some Nigerians are already envisaging rush and long queues in the banking hall across the country as a result of people trying to get access to the new naira notes, which was unveiled last month by President MuhammaduBuhari at a brief ceremony at the State House, Abuja.
“Aware also that the old notes are expected to be in circulation alongside the new ones until January 31, 2023, when the old notes are expected to be phased out, it is expected that many Nigerian businesses would start to reject the old notes as soon as the banks start paying out the redesigned notes to customers.