The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has some good news for Nigerians: the old N200, N500 and N1,000 notes will remain legal tender beyond December 31, 2023.
The central bank announced the introduction of redesigned N200, N500 and N1,000 banknotes in October 2022, to rein in excess cash, fight crime and kidnapping, and address inflation and counterfeiting.
The CBN gave Nigerians only six weeks to swap the old notes for new ones. The deadline was later extended by 10 days.
The rollout of the policy disintegrated into chaos. Nigeria was hit with a disastrous cash shortage. Millions of citizens were cash-strapped, spending endless queues in banks daily to either swap their banknotes or to get cash.
Succour came when the Supreme Court ordered that old notes remain in circulation until the end of the year.
But the CBN retired the subsisting court’s order on Tuesday.
“All banknotes issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in accordance with Section 20(5) of the CBN Act 2007, will continue to remain legal tender, ad infinitum, even beyond the initial December 31, 2023, deadline,” Isa AbdulMumin, CBN’s director of corporate communications said via a press statement.
The CBN spokesperson also said the apex bank was working to invalidate the court’s judgment.
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