The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has allayed fears of the people, particularly traders, over meeting up with the January 31st deadline for the acceptance of the old N1,000, N500 and N200 notes as legal tender, disclosing that commercial banks have been directed to work for 24 hours on the day.
Traders in Ogun State had on Thursday, during a sensitization programme organised by the Apex Bank at Lafenwa Market, Abeokuta, expressed their fear over the feasibility of the deadline for the validity of the old naira notes.
But addressing the traders on the issue, the Abeokuta Branch Controller of the CBN, Wahab Oseni, assured the market women that they can still return old naira notes for exchange of new ones till 7p.m of January 31st 2023 as commercial bank officials would be working to ensure thing go according to the directive.
The CBN Controller urged traders who were yet to have bank accounts to either open one or go through their cooperative finances.
Oseni, while expressing concerns on the issue of security advised the market women to adopt cashless policy and embrace e-transfer and other safer modes of transaction.
He urged them to also take care of the new notes and insisted that there were no fake redesigned notes in circulation, imploring them not squeeze the notes or keep them where there is moisture.
While informing the traders that no kobo would be removed from any amount of money deposited from any account till January 31st, Oseni, however, declared that any commercial bank that refused to dispense the new notes either at ATM or counter would be sanctioned and fined.
Daily Sun