By Tony Obiechina, Abuja
Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Godwin Emefiele, says commercial banks will continue to accept the old Naira notes even after the expiration of the February 10 deadline.
Mr Emefiele announced this on Tuesday while appearing before the House of Representatives ad hoc committee looking into the implementation of the policy.
The CBN governor said he agreed with section 20(3) of the CBN Act, which provides that commercial banks must accept old notes after a deadline.
Section 20 (3) of the Act says: “Notwithstanding Sub-sections (1) and (2) of this section, the Bank shall have power, if directed to do so by the President and after giving reasonable notice in that behalf, to call in any of its notes or coins on payment of the face value thereof and any note or coin with respect to which a notice has been given under this Sub-section, shall, on the expiration of the notice, cease to be legal tender, but, subject to section 22 of this Act, shall be redeemed by the Bank upon demand.”
Mr Emefiele said commercial banks must accept the money even after the 10 February deadline.
Although Emefiele had on Sunday announced 17 February as the “grace period” for Nigerians to deposit the money, the lawmakers were insisting that it must be months, not days.
In his speech, Mr Emefiele said “the law which says even after the old currency has lost its legal tender status that we are mandated to collect these money. And I stand with the House of Reps on this. What does that mean? It could have lost its legal tender status which means we have moved on.
“But if you have your money that you have not been able to send to the bank, we will certainly give you the opportunity to bring them back into the CBN to redeem it. Either you pay it to your bank account or you want to do an exchange—we will give you. You will not lose your money. This is the assurance I give to Nigerians.”
Emefiele, who was supposed to appear before the Committee last week, failed to do stating he was out of the country with President Muhammadu Buhari.
The House had threatened to invoke the provisions of section 89(1)(d) of the Constitution by issuing a warrant of arrest today to compel him to appear.
The CBN Governor, who appeared with some of his assistants, went into a brief Executive session with members of the committee.
