The Central Bank of Nigeria says the current series of N200, N500 and N1,000 notes remain legal tender until the deadline of January 31, 2023.
The Apex bank announced this in a tweet on Friday.
This comes as some groups have called on the CBN to extend the deadline for depositing old currencies in the slated denominations.
The Leadership of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MCBAN), a normadic socio cultural group appealed to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to extend the deadline for the depositing of the old currency notes to commercial banks by three months.
Miyetti Allah’s plea follows a resolution of the Senate on Wednesday to provide legislative support to the CBN for the redesign of the N1,000, N500 and N200 naira notes.
Reacting to the development, the leader of MACBAN in the South-East Zone, Gidado Siddiki, in an interview with journalists in Awka, the Anambra State capital, said extension of time would enable the members who majorly lived in the forests and bushes, as a result of their accestral business (grazing), to bring out their savings for exchange to the redesigned naira notes to avoid a huge loss of their money.
Siddiki who said the Association was fully in support of the CBN’S policy, said, “why we are appealing is because in 1985 when similar policy was announced, so many of our people that were in their grazing settlements at the rural areas across the country lost their money because of the promptness of information.
“They could not meet up with the timeframe given by the Apex Bank. The two weeks given then was not enough for them to meet up and majority of the herders lost their longtime savings because, many of the herders do not have acount numbers, do not keep their money in the bank. They kept and protect their money locally.
“We cannot fight or reverse government policies as law abiding citizens of Nigeria; we are only appealing to the CBN to help us extend the deadline for another three months so as to enable the leadership of Miyetti Allah reach out properly to those living in out-of-telecommunication areas across states of the federation,” Siddiki stated.
The plea also follows the resolution made by the Senate after a heated debate on a motion moved by Senator Uba Sani on CBN’s policy to redesign the three denominations of the naira notes.
Majority of the Senators across party lines supported the redesign of the naira but some of them expressed concern about the deadline set by the apex bank for the old notes to be deposited in commercial banks.
The apex bank had on October 26, 2022 announced that it would redesign the N200, N500, and N1,000 notes.
CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, who announced this during a press briefing, said the new design would take effect in January.
