Ajiri Imah
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has insisted that there is no going back on the stipulated deadline despite appeals by the National Assembly.
The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele has repeatedly advised Nigerians to deposit their old notes, regardless of the amount, in banks before January 31st which is the fixed deadline.
However, Nigerians are pleading for extensions as customers are flooding the banks for exchange of the old 200, 500 and 1000 naira notes before the stipulated deadline.
Customers, are seen in long queues in most of the banks while lamenting the failure of most of the banks to provide the new naira notes.
According to report, Banks in Lagos, Kano, Osun to mention a few are short of the new naira notes.
A customer, Alhaji Ismaila Musa who is a farmer from the Eleyowo community in the Akure North Local Government, Ondo State, said the new notes were not yet circulating as expected.
He said, “We are calling on banks to follow the CBN directives and make the new notes available to all of us. We have to come to Akure to deposit the old notes and we have not seen the new notes in our area.”
However, several customers are complaining of the shortage of the N500 and the N200 notes as most ATMs dispense the N1,000 note.