Naira redesign policy: Governors set up committee to liaise with CBN over anomalies in financial system

State governors in the country, under the aegis of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), have set up a six- member committee to engage the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in addressing anomalies in the country’s monetary management and financial system.

The forum disclosed this in a communiqué issued, Saturday, at the end of its virtual meeting held with the CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, on Thursday night.

The committee, according to the communiqué signed by NGF Chairman, the Sokoto State Gov. Aminu Tambuwal, is chaired by Prof. Charles Soludoof Anambra State, with governors of Akwa Ibom, Ogun, Borno, Plateau and Jigawa states as members.

The governors said that while they were not opposed to the objectives of the Naira redesign policy, the CBN should consider the peculiarities of households and states, especially pertaining to financial inclusion and under-served locations.

“We, the members of the NGF, received a briefing from the Governor of the CBN, Emefiele, on the Naira redesign, its economic and security implications including the new withdrawal policy.

“Governors are not opposed to the objectives of the Naira redesign policy.

“However, we observe that there are huge challenges that remain problematic to the Nigerian populace.

“In the circumstances, governors expressed the need for the CBN to consider the peculiarities of states especially as they pertained to financial inclusion and under-served locations.”

The governors resolved to work closely with the CBN leadership to ameliorate areas that required policy variation, particularly the poorest households, the vulnerable in society and several other Nigerians that were excluded.

In a related development, the National Orientation Agency (NOA) has commenced sensitisation of the general public on the need to deposit old Naira notes in their bank accounts.

This is also as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) last Friday took its awareness campaign of the newly redesigned notes (N1,000, N500, N200) to the Lagos Central Mosque at Balogun Market.

The redesigned notes came into use on December 15, 2022, while the old notes will cease to be legal tender on January 31.

According to the CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele the January 31 deadline still remains.

NOA officials visited churches, mosques and motor parks to enlighten the people about the economic benefits of the CBN measure.

NOA Acting Director in Zamfara State, Mallam  Aminu Ibrahim said the exercise was to enlighten the public on the dangers of continuous keeping of old Naira notes in their possessions beyond Jan. 31 as the date remained unchanged.

He urged the people to discard all rumours circulating on the shift of the date for depositing old notes of N1000, N500 and N200 as legal tender, stating that the commercial banks had been directed to cooperate with the Central Bank of Nigeria to ensure that citizens deposited their old money.

Ibrahim said that they had been directed to stop dispensing old cash notes to customers.

He said that NOA was out to reach communities through media and public places, to ensure that everyone complied with the cashless policy.

Remarking, Deputy Director at CBN, Mohammed’Jamiu Solaja, who spoke before the commencement of Friday prayers, explained to the Muslim faithful the major reasons for redesigning the naira.

He urged them to deposit their old notes to beat the deadline and embrace the new notes due to its inherent benefits.

“The Central Bank’s reason for coming here is to get Muslim brothers and sisters in the Lagos Central Mosque acquainted with the newly redesigned naira notes and encourage them to embrace it.

“The aim of the currency redesign is generally to achieve specific objectives such as improving security of banknotes, mitigating counterfeiting, preserving the collective national heritage, controlling currency in circulation and reducing the overall cost of currency management,’’ Solaja said.

He recalled that the CBN governor announced the decision of the apex bank to redesign the highest denominations of the naira on Oct. 26, 2022.

Acknowledging the presence of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr Femi Gbajabiamila, who was at the mosque for a special prayer, Solaja noted that currency management was a key function of the CBN as enshrined in Section 2 (b) of the its Act 2007.

He said that some of the challenges to currency management which includes hoarding of the naira by some unscrupulous members of the public, showed about 85 per cent of currency in circulation was outside the vaults of commercial banks.

According to him, the worsening shortage of clean and fit banknotes with attendant negative perception of the CBN and increased risk to financial stability as well as increasing ease and risk of counterfeiting evidenced by several security reports are reasons for redesigning the notes.

Solaja told the worshipers that the CBN had made sufficient bank notes available and was currently monitoring the banks to ensure that they push the same out to the banking public.

He gave out numbers they could call if there were   complaints around the newly redesigned bank notes,  urging people to report banks that fail to dispense new notes via their Automated Teller Machines.

Earlier, Chief Sikiru Alabi-Macfoy, Vice Chairman of the Lagos Central Mosque Executive Council, who received the CBN team, commended the regulatory bank for extending the exercise to the mosque, as he also urged the bank to further enhance the campaign nationwide.

Alabi-Macfoy, a former Assistant Manager, Foreign Operations at the CBN in the 1970s, assured that the message of the CBN would be conveyed to the worshipers in different languages that would be easily understood.

Highlight of the exercise was a presentation of flyers and samples of the redesigned notes to some top members of the Lagos Central Mosque present.