The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) confirmed on Tuesday that plans are in place to gradually phase out the old N200, N500, and N1,000 naira notes.
Acting Governor of the apex bank, Folashodun Shonubi, provided these details after a monetary policy committee meeting at the CBN headquarters in Abuja.
Back in October 2022, former CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele announced plans to redesign these currency bills and asked Nigerians to deposit their old notes before they became invalid on January 31, 2023.
Former President Muhammadu Buhari then approved an extension of the deadline for the demonetisation of these old notes.
However, in March 2023, the Supreme Court overturned the naira redesign policy and ruled that these old notes would remain legal tender until December 31, 2023.
Shonubi clarified on Tuesday that these old notes will “slowly, and over time be replaced”. He added that the old notes were being exchanged for new ones upon request by commercial banks.
Shonubi said, “When a currency is printed and sent out. It is expected that it will go through a number of cycles, and then over time, will become one and then be replaced. That’s what we’re doing.
“We had to put out or re-put out old notes. And as they’re coming in, they’re being processed and returned to us as not issuable. We are then bringing out and replacing them with the new notes.
“We believe that we have an optimal level of the currency out there and so much of what’s being done is replacement to keep the level, rather than just putting money out there.
“And that is seen by the fact that the banks, whenever they come to us for notes, we provide it to them. If it wasn’t enough, they will be asking us for more. If it was too much, they’ll be dumping that much more on us.
“So, we will slowly, and over time you will see the old notes replaced out of the system with the new notes that’ll be the norm.
“This will be out of practice, not fanfare, you’ll just see it slowly morph from old to new.”
