CBN reacts to new notes scarcity, added that there won’t be extension in the deadline.

The CBN has made a plea to the traders at the Abubakar Mahmud Gumi Market in Kaduna to make sure that the old naira notes are deposited at commercial banks as part of the ongoing sensitization campaign on new notes.

The deadline of January 31 would not be extended, the top bank emphasized.

Mohammed Abba, director of capacity development for the CBN, urged traders to move quickly and exchange their old naira notes for the new ones as he briefed journalists on the advantages of the new notes at the Central Market Motor Park in Kaduna on Saturday.

He also noted that the CBN would sanction errant commercial banks which refused to dispense the new naira notes through their ATMs or were found hoarding the notes.

“For now, I don’t think there is any possibility of changing or extending the January 31 deadline within which the old naira notes will cease as legal tender,” he added.

The CBN had promised to punish any commercial bank discovered hoarding the new naira notes during a number of programs, claiming that it had manufactured enough to distribute them to all of the banks in the nation.

The CBN Kano Branch Controller, Alhaji Umar Biu, stated that traders had the right to report any bank found either hoarding the new naira notes or charging customers before depositing their old naira notes last Thursday during a sensitization program on the new naira notes organized for traders at the Sabon Gari market in Kano.

“You have the right to report any bank found hoarding the new naira notes or refusing to collect your old naira notes before the 31st January 2023 deadline.

“No bank should refuse to collect the old naira notes until the deadline of 31st January 2023,” the branch controller said.

He claims that in an effort to prevent client favoritism, the central bank has instructed commercial banks to stop accepting payments in person.

He insisted that the deadline of January 31, 2023, was set in stone and said that all of the previous naira notes would stop being accepted as legal cash on that day.