CBN controller ignores S”Court, says old naira no longer acceptable

A branch controller of the Central Bank of Nigeria has said the old naira notes of N200, N500 and N1,000 have ceased to be legal tender in Nigeria since February 10, 2023.

The Branch Controller, CBN, Bauchi, Haladu Idris Andaza, made this known on Monday.

This is in clear violation of the Supreme Court rulling and an affront on the position of the Council of State, which endorsed the naira redesign, but said both the new naira and the old one should coexist to save the country from scarcity of naira.

It is, however, not clear if Andaza was being overzealous or speaking the mind of his boss, the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele.

However, Andaza on Monday said, “For the avoidance of doubt, we wish to state categorically that CBN is ready and is opened to receive all of those old notes based on certain conditions and criteria.

“Customers are free to come to the Bank and deposit, which they cannot do at the Commercial Banks anymore because the currency has ceased to be legal tender since the 10th of this month.

“Consequently, the management of the CBN decided that those customers will have a sigh of relief by coming to the offices of the CBN in all the 36 states in the Federation, including FCT, to deposit their money.

“The customer has to go to the CBN portal and fill a form in the portal.

“There will be a form there concerning this currency redesign and exchange.

“After filling the form, you generate a code, you either print it or come with it in your mobile phone, give us the code and the information contained therein.

“In the form, you are expected to provide all the basic information about yourself, your account details and the amount you want to deposit.

“By the time you have done it correctly, you come to the CBN where the code will be accepted from you as well as the money, process and confirm the genuineness or otherwise of the money to avoid receiving fake notes because there are some fake notes in circulation now.

“If anyone wants to try us by bringing in fake notes, he should be ready to be arrested.

“So don’t go and print old fake naira notes and bring them to the CBN.

“Whatever happens to you, don’t blame us.

“We will receive the money from you and do our internal checks before we give you an acknowledgement, which is evidence to show that we have collected that amount from you, and we go ahead with our internal processes.

“After finishing with the internal processes, we now hit your account and credit it through your Commercial Bank.

“All the Commercial Banks are expected to bring all old notes deposited to us and we will collect.

“Some of the Banks have started depositing with us because they want to close their books.

“As soon as they do that, they will not collect from customers again.

“That is the reason CBN decided to open this portal for the general public, especially the vulnerable who are still having problems of cash used for trading and now that the deadline has expired, they need to deposit their money.

“The CBN is trying to minimise risk involved in losing that money.

“We are trying to minimise hardship also.

“We know that people are having some hardship, people are suffering.

“We not unmindful of that fact.

“That was why the management of the CBN has magnanimously decided to open that portal to assist those who were unable to deposit the money into their bank accounts.

“That is our process flow in a nutshell.

“The portal will be there, opened for some time, depending on the circumstances and the directives from the management.

“We expect that within this period, people should have been able to deposit all they have.

“It is a privilege given to Nigerians to ensure that they deposit that money even though they are no longer legal tender.

“For the people in the remote areas, if you can recollect, we have gone round virtually all the villages in Bauchi State with some commercial banks asking the people to open accounts, which many of them did, and were able to deposit their money.

“I doubt if there are still people who have not keyed into the system now who are still having old money.

“We used the media, NOA (National Orientation Agency) and traditional rulers just to let the people know.

“No limit to the amount that can be deposited provided the form was properly filled.

“There are a lot of firewalls that can protect the people accessing the portal.

“No any cause for alarm.”

In his remarks, the CBN Team Lead, Bauchi State, who is the Director, Medical Services of the apex bank, Dr. Abdulkadir Jibril, said at the briefing, “It is a point we have made before.

“I just want to emphasise it.

“Not everybody in Bauchi State is privileged to be at this meeting and so, there is the moral and professional responsibility on their shoulders to ensure that this information gets to every nook and cranny of the state and even beyond.

“I am appealing to our people, both men and women, to carry or propagate this message everywhere so that people can do the needful.”