President Muhammadu Buhari has unveiled the new naira notes of N1000, N500, and N200 at the Council Chamber of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

The unveiling of the new redesigned notes took place yesterday shortly before the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC), meeting presided over by President Buhari.

Speaking to State House correspondents after the brief ceremony, the governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele said that in line with the global practice, the naira was supposed to be redesigned and re-issued between five and eight years.

He regretted that in Nigeria, the naira has not been redesigned for about 19 years now because of lack of political will from the previous leaders.

According to him, “In the past, I have to confess that attempts by the CBN to redesign and reissue the naira notes have been resisted. It is only President Muhammadu Buhari that has the courage to do so.”

Emefiele said it was the mandate of the CBN, to redesign and reissue the notes, assuring that henceforth, the exercise would take place after five to eight years.

“After today, the CBN will begin to redesign and reissue the naira for every five to eight years,” he said.

The CBN governor said that Nigeria has gone cashless and that security agencies would monitor people making withdrawal at the counter to know how much withdrawn and also monitor the usage of the money.

He said there was no need to insinuate that the policy was targeted at anyone.

Emefiele said that the CBN was determined in ensuring that the provision of the law on volume of money one should carry is followed.

“The world has moved to cashless economy and the CBN has moved to cashless economy. We will restrain the volume of cash someone will withdraw over the counter. We will follow up with the person’s data to know the reason for such withdrawal,” he said.

For those calling for extension of time for the usage of the old notes, the CBN boss said, “we will not go with people that want extension of time. From today, this currency that was re-issued will become a legal tender.”

He said there is no local government area in the country where there is no bank agent, adding that there is over one million point across the country that people should go and deposit the old notes.

He also assured that they new notes cannot be counterfeited because of the features in them.

The Governor of the CBN the practice worldwide is that currencies should  be redesigned  or replaced or reissued every five to eight years. But for Nigeria, we have not had the opportunity of redesigning and reissuing currency in the last almost 19 years.

The Central Bank of Nigeria by law has a mandate to reissue and redesign currency for the country and for Nigerian people, every five to eight years and he hoped that after the event of today, the Central Bank of Nigeria can just take it as part of its programmes to see to it that every within five to eight years, the currencies are designed or reissued.

“It is because mainly the central bank should be able to have control full of the size  of currency in circulation, that is the sole mandate of the Central Bank of Nigeria, because it has implications for monetary policy management in the country,” Emefiele said.

According to him, there is no need for anybody to think that the this programme is targeted at anyone. Like you heard the President speak in the chambers, he said that this discussion to redesign and reissue  this currency started earlier in the year.

In the past, the CBN governor said, “attempts by the Central Bank of Nigeria to redesign our ratio currencies have been resisted. And that is the reason I also read in my speech, that is only a president of the esteem and statute of President Muhammadu Buhari that could have done this. And I want to seize the opportunity to appeal to members of the public that there is no need for any insinuations, giving the impression that this is targeted at any individual there is no attempt at that. We are doing our work and we would continue to do our work.”

The CBN governor said that their policy of redesign and reissue is not targeted at anyone.

“But of course, we have the laws and we will indeed be more intense in ensuring that the provisions of the law and our cbn regulations about the size and volume of currency  that people  can carry, or hold or withdraw we will insist that this is done going forward,” he said.

“In other countries you will find, say in the US want to withdraw $10,000 from the counter, you will be interrogated, you will fill numerous forms, they will even track the use of that $10,000 cash that you are withdrawing or you want to withdraw £10,000 from the counter, they will refuse and if you insist then you will fill forms.

“There is no economy that is inbuilt thinking that it has to be cash economy. The world has moved away from predominantly cash to cashless economy and I think Nigeria and the Central Bank of Nigeria is prepared at this time to move towards a cashless economy and that is the reason why with the reissue of these notes, we will insist that cashless would be nationwide; we will restrict the volume of cash that people can withdraw over the counter.

“If you need to withdraw large volume of cash, you will fill uncountable forms. We will take your data, whether it is your BVN, your NIN so that enforcement agencies like EFCC or ICPC can follow you and be sure that you are taking that money for good purpose.

“We have to work as a country, Nigeria is the biggest country both in population and economy in Africa and we have to ensure that we do things the right way that also positions us as leader in Africa and one of the leading countries in the world. We must do things right and i think it would start from today,” the CBN boss explained.

On the call for extension of tender of the old notes, the apex bank governor said, it is in their minds when they said that the time is too short; adding that “we will not go with them on that destination.”

“What we are saying is this, we announced this programme October 26th, 2022 and we have said that from today, this currency that is reissued will be legal tender in Nigeria and all over the world wherever it’s going to be accepted. So we believe between October 26th, 2022 to January 31st, 2023, we believe that is more than 100 days. Like the president has said, if you have cash it should not take you more than 100 days to be able to deposit it in your bank and take whatever little quantity you need  for use.

The CBN said they have made adequate  arrangement, the banks have been told that they will keep their currency processing center open from Mondays to Saturdays even to late hours every day.

“We have also offered that the Central Bank of Nigeria currency processing centers across all 36 states including Abuja, 37, will be available to process cash from Mondays to Saturdays.

“It might interest us to know that on a daily basis, the deputy governor operations calls the banks, the CBN currency processing centers to find pit of there are queues or if there are some form of congestion about people depositing cash. There is none. We have also made available through our agency banking arrangement people in the villages can use POS and their stores to receive and pay cash.”

He disclosed that in 2018, we had 86,000 touch points of agency banking, as at October the number of those who have financial system touch points are 1.4 million, saying, “there is no local government that you don’t have agent bankers that can do this on our behalf. So it’s as good as saying we have over one million points or branches of banks where you can deposit or take your cash to. There is no reason for anyone to say he cannot access cash or be able to pay his take into a bank. So we are not going to go with those people on their journey to say that time is short. In our wisdom and the wisdom of Mr. President, time is not short, we have more than ample time to do so.”

The CBN governor boasted that these new notes cannot be counterfeited because of the security features in them, “nobody can counterfeit them. What you could only find will be people making photocopy of these notes. If you follow due process to check the authenticity of a currency, take them through the UV light, you will find that this currency cannot be counterfeited.

“The best you will find is photocopies. What I am trying to say is that to reduce that incidence of counterfeiting or photocopying, that is why we are saying the CBN must now without waiting every five to eight years must redesign and reissue these notes, so that those who think they can take advantage of the system by counterfeiting will know that the game is over for them,” he said.

Asked to disclose the how much has been mopped up so far by the apex bank, Emefiele said, “Those kind of volume we don’t like to disclose. Like we told you, N3.23 trillion is in circulation and out of that N2.72 trillion is outside the bank vault. And we will insist that those N2.72 trillion must return to the bank vault by January 31st, 2023. If you chose to hold it after January 31st, 2023 it will become useless in your hand that’s all.”