BusinessNewsNigeriaSupreme Court: Old Naira notes won’t expire on 31 December

…CBN order banks to issue, accept old and new notes.

The old N200, N500 and N1000 banknotes will continue to be in use beyond 31 December 2023, the Supreme Court in Abuja ruled on Wednesday.

The court overruled an earlier order it gave in March that pegged the deadline for the validity of the old naira notes by the end of the year.

The court’s judgement was in favour of the federal government who, last week, asked the apex court to scrap the initial timeframe, citing the economic downturn that has made Nigerians hoard the new naira notes and the government unable to print more of the redesigned notes to beat the deadline.

‘To effectively stabilise the economy, the federal government is of the strong view that the old versions of N200, N500 and N1000 notes should continue to be legal tender alongside the new versions,’ Lateef Fagbemi, the attorney-general of the federation, argued in an application.

The Supreme Court mandated the federal government to stall the transition to new naira banknotes until all bottlenecks in the transitioning process are eliminated.

A few hours after the Supreme Court’s verdict, the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, released a memo directing its branches across the country ‘to continue to issue and accept all denominations of Nigerian banknotes, old and redesigned, to and from deposit money banks (DMBs)’.

‘Accordingly, in line with Section 20(5) of the CBN Act 2007, all banknotes issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will continue to remain legal tender, indefinitely,’ the statement by Sidi Ali Hakama, the CBN’s acting director of corporate communications said.

The CBN, on 14 November, announced that the legal tender status has been extended ‘ad infinitum’ and asked Nigerians to keep using and accepting both the old and new banknotes.

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By Ezinwanne Onwuka (Senior Reporter)

Ezinwanne Onwuka, senior staff reporter and columnist with WAP is a Nigerian-based writer and content developer. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from the prestigious University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Her interests include reading, writing, researching and graphic designing.

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