By Victor Nwegede
The Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar has during the weekend made a plea to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for a “slight extension” of the January 31 deadline on the use of the three old Naira banknotes for transactions.
According to him, the CBN should please consider a “slight extension” of the January 31 deadline on old N200, N500 and N1,000 notes, because the “large” unbanked population, especially in the rural area, will find it almost impossible to exchange their old banknotes for the redesigned currency in time.
However, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), had on Saturday asserted that the deadline for one thousand, five hundred and two hundred old Naira banknotes would not exceed 31st January 2023.
CBN stated this through their staff at the palace of Odenigbo I of Okposi Okwu Community in Ohaozara Local Government Area of Ebonyi State, HRH Eze Onyibe Chukwu Agwu during their sensitization visit and cash swapping programme in the locale.
According to the CBN Deputy Director of Development Finance in Abuja, Chika Nwanja, the cash swapping and sensitization programme were among the steps already taken by Nigeria's apex bank to assist rural dwellers to have a full knowledge of the country's policy on the newly designed Naira banknotes.
He said the CBN team has toured different communities across the 13 council areas in Ebonyi State to sensitize the populace to be aware of the newly designed Naira notes and the deadline for the use of the old currencies including one thousand, five hundred and two hundred Naira notes.
Nwanja explained that "today, we began at the palace of Odenigbo I of Okosi Okwu, Eze Onyibe Chukwu Agwu to sensitize his cabinets and other community members to be aware of the new Naira notes, because the deadline for the old currencies remains 31st January 2023.
"We have emphasized the need for people especially the market women and petty traders to use financial multiple channels including banks, and Shared Agent Network Expansion Facilities(SANEF) to pay in their old currencies and as well get new ones, to avoid losses.
"This sensitization is necessary to some members of the public who may have not got full knowledge of the newly designed currencies."
Nwanja who was with Dr Elias Uduaja - the CBN Deputy Director in the Research Department in Abuja; Nnamdi Okeh - CBN Manager in Ebonyi State and Chioma Sebastian - CBN Senior Supervisor in Abuja among their colleagues and the financial agents of the Point Of Sale (POS) took the cash swapping and sensitization programme to the Eke Okosi Okwu market in Ohaozara, Afo Eneagu Market in Onicha LGA, and other Ebonyi rural communities to ensure the market women and petty traders have access to the new Naira notes.
He said the CBN team did exchange the old naira notes with new ones to over a thousand rural people, and each of them at least got #3,00 new notes during the programme today.
The CBN team said though they understood the challenges these redesigned currencies posed on the general public, especially the local people who have been complaining of one problem or the other but maintained that "the CBN is on top of it, and that's why we are coming directly to the people at in their local communities."
The team noted that the CBN has mapped out procedures to regulate the charges by its money agents on the customers at their POS units, saying this necessitated the sensitization of the local populace to know how Nigeria's apex bank operates.
Some of the community stakeholders including the traditional ruler of the Okposi Okwu - Eze Onyibe Chukwu Agwu, his counterpart of the Okposi Kingdom, Eze Onyibe Cosmas Agwu, Elder Chief Ogbonnaya Ugwu, among others described the introduction of the new Naira notes as a welcome development and urged the general public to follow the guidelines of the CBN.
They noted that the full use of the redesigned currencies would go a long way to reduce financial crimes, especially the demands of ransom after kidnapping and counterfeiting by the criminals, based on the explanations from the CBN officials.
However, some market women and petty traders from the area, Ijeoma Okoronkwo, and Ijeoma Emmanuel, among others pleaded with the CBN to extend the deadline for the use of the old naira notes, complaining about various challenges including blocking of bank account numbers, difficulty to access bank officials for transactions due to crowds in their banks, high charges by POS agents for cash swapping, not having a bank account yet, etc.
