President Muhammadu Buhari will unveil the newly redesigned naira notes on Wednesday, the Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele has revealed.
Emefiele said this at the last Monetary Policy Committee meeting held on Tuesday in Abuja.
Emefiele said the redesigned currency will be unveiled by the President at the Federal Executive Council meeting.
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He said, “For information, indeed we are no longer waiting till December 15th to unveil and begin to release the new notes. By the special grace of God, tomorrow which is the 23rd of November 2022, the President has graciously accepted to unveil the new currencies and the new currencies will be unveiled tomorrow at the Federal Executive Chambers by 10am.”
The CBN governor also insisted that the deadline to withdraw the old notes on January 31, 2023 will hold.
The CBN had in October announced the redesign of the N100, N500 and N200 notes.
He further revealed that N1000 and N500 notes in circulation will also be reduced overtime.
He said, “Let me crack a joke. If you are a diaspora Nigerian, you are not supposed to be spending naira. You cannot spend naira in the US or London so you have no reason to keep naira. So, we do not have business with you if you say that you want us to wait for you to bring your naira from the US into Nigeria, we will not wait for you.
“We also thank Mr President because at a time we were faced with criticisms, he also came out without being prompted or he has come out twice to defend the action of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
“We want to thank the security agencies that have worked with us to see to a smooth transition of this programme particularly, the EFCC which has done great work in collaborating with us in monitoring the flows.
“But the question that has been raised is, are we going to shift the deadline? The answer remains no. Capital no. We will not shift any deadline. What we have done is not against the law. It is in line with the law. We announced this programme on October 26th,2022 and we said that upon release of the new currency, the legal tender status will run concurrently with the old currency till 31st of January 2023.
“That is almost 100 days. One hundred days is enough for any person in any part of Nigeria to deposit his money in the bank and get ready to withdraw cash when the new notes are released.”
This story was updated with quote of the CBN Governor.