CBN urges traditional rulers to sensitise subjects on new naira note
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has appealed to traditional rulers in rural areas to convey the message on the newly redesigned notes to the people.
Mr Moses Ademosu, Deputy Director, Governor’s Department, CBN , made the appeal when the bank took its sensitisation train on the new naira notes to the Palace of the Oloja of Epe Land and Olu Epe of Epe Kingdom, on Wednesday in Lagos.
Ademosu informed the Obas about the apex banks’ withdrawal policy and the newly redesigned notes.
He said that the old naira denominations of N1000, N500 and N200 would cease to be legal tender by Tuesday, Jan. 31.
“What we are here to do is to solicit your support to help us inform your people that they should take their old notes (N1,000, N500 and N200) to the banks because as from Jan. 31, they will not be acceptable anywhere.
“They should take it to the bank or find a way to send it via the Point of Sale machines (POS) or any other electronic channels that they can use to carry out their banking services,” he said.
His Royal Majesty, Oba Kamorudeen Ishola Animashaun, the Oloja of Epe Land, who urged the apex bank to ensure availability of the new notes, promised to be the mouthpiece of the apex
“The best thing is for the CBN to assist the banks and compel them to make sure that the new notes are avaialble for the people.
“If the banks do not dispense the new notes now to the people, it will cause another problem which we do not want, and at the same time, we have to be very careful because it is time for élection.
“So, that is my appeal to the CBN governor and its team; we appreciate you, we honour you, we agree with you, we will try to tell our people.
“We will tell the town crier to go round the community to make sure he alerts the people and make sure they agree and comply with the government position,” he said.
The Olu Epe of Epe Kingdom, Oba Sefiu Olatunji Adewale, appealed to the apex bank to extend the Jan. 31 deadline to give the people time to take their old notes to the bank.
“You know that we have less than two weaks to the end of this month, I appeal to CBN to extend the deadline because Epe is a difficult terrain.
“Your interest should not just be about changing the denominations but it should be done in a way that people will not be disadvantaged,” he said.
The apex bank’s sensitisation train also visited Oluwo Modern Fish Market to sensitise the traders about the new notes and the expiry date for the old notes.
They shared flyers to them and samples of the notes were given to the Iya Oloja of Oluwo Modern Fish Market.
The CBN monitoring team also visited some banks in the community to check if they were dispensing new notes.
Out of five banks visited, only one bank dispensed the new notes.
The banks gave reasons of logistics as what was making them not to have enough new notes to load in their Automated Teller Machines (ATMs).
The train also visited Mile 12 Market, Ojuoye market at Mushin as well as Tejuosho market.
