Updated: Apprehension as banks, ATMs continue dispensing old naira notes 27 days to CBN deadline

Barely 27 days to the deadline for people to exchange their old naira notes with the newly redesigned N200, N500 and N1,000 notes, banks are still dispensing old notes to their customers.

The situation currently causing some apprehension among bank customers in Nigeria is coming 20 days after the release of the just redesigned notes to the banks by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Many Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) across the country are still dispensing the old notes.

Daily Sun also reported that the situation was not any different at the banking halls where old notes are being given out.

Indeed, its investigation revealed that bank customers across parts of Lagos (Ajah and Oshodi) are agitated that the new notes have remained out of reach.

They have therefore called on the Federal Government and the CBN to extend the deadline to allow adequate circulation of the notes.

The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, had said the new notes would be circulated across the country by December 15, 2022.

The apex bank also set a deadline of January 31, 2023 for all the old N200, N500 and N1,000 notes to be withdrawn from the financial system and would cease to be legal tender.

Emefiele stated that the new notes had already been dispensed to the banks who would in turn dispense to their customers.

He also advised Nigerians to deposit the denominations to be redesigned to their various banks, saying that banks would be opened for operations from Monday to Saturday weekly.

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A countdown clock which is visible on the CBN’s website, shows January 31, 2023, as the deadline for the affected notes to cease as legal tender.

However, bank customers who used the ATMs in parts of Lagos, Abuja and other states of the federation during the holidays up until yesterday, after the Yuletide holidays  complained that the ATMs were still dispensing only old notes and sceptical about the January 31, deadline, urging the apex bank to extend its date.

Mr Uchenna Madabuchi, a spare parts dealer at Oshodi, said, “When the CBN came out with the redesigned notes announcement, I knew there would be flaws as I told my friends, the notes would not circulate properly due to the ‘Nigerian factor’.

“I came to the ATM hoping to get new notes but it is still dispensing old notes. I hope the CBN is looking into this and I suggest they extend the deadline so that Nigerians, especially bank customers would have access to these notes.”