It’s illegal to reject old notes before January 31 deadline – CBN warns

The Zamfara State branch of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has said rejecting the old Naira notes before the deadline given by the apex bank is illegal and punishable by law.

The CBN, therefore, directed the police to arrest those who refuse to collect the old notes, pointing out that they are still legal tender until after the 31st January 2023 deadline.

Newsmen gathered that the apex bank has officially directed five of the commercial banks in the state to, as a matter of urgency, release new notes, threatening to sanction them if they failed to adhere to the directive.

Commenting on the scarcity of new notes during a sensitization workshop organised by the association of Point of Sales, POS, operators in the state held on Thursday at Maryam Hall in Gusau, the controller of CBN in the state, Mallam Buhari Abbas, gave reasons why the apex bank introduced the new notes.

Abbas, therefore, urged operators of POS to consider and assist in opening a new bank account for anyone who wants to deposit money and has no account.

“You should do selfless service by not allowing people to lose their money because they don’t have accounts, assist, help those who want to deposit their money”, he added.

According to him, the CBN had introduced new notes to reduce notes being in circulation in the hand of the public.

“More than 80% of Naira notes were in the hands of people, and the CBN has studied this and decided to introduce the policy to reduce the notes at hand, and the policy will harmonise the interest rate,” he said.

He noted that introducing the new CBN policy was to bring more development to the country, saying that the policy, if properly utilized, would boost businesses.