The majority of Nigerians and managing authorities of commercial banks have urged the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN to extend the January 31 deadline for old naira notes.
The old notes which are expected to be out of circulation by January 31 are still being used by the majority of the country’s population as there is a scarcity of the new notes and banks keep dispensing the old naira notes to their customers.
This led to different stakeholders mounting pressure on the apex bank to extend the
deadline to allow the new notes to circulate very well and ensure the mop-up of the old notes.
However, a source close to the chief executive of a Tier-1 lender had on Friday,
January 13 said that the bank managing directors could not make the call for the deadline extension openly as the decision on the naira redesign of the naira had their seal of approval.
Meanwhile, a senior CBN official who did not want his name in print had remarked that the apex bank might yet, yield to the pressure for an extension of the deadline, while revealing that a new date may probably be announced before or during the CBN Monetary Policy Committee meeting coming up on Wednesday, January 25, 2023.
