CBN to meet, Monday, over fresh directives to banks on Naira, denies lacking capacity to print new notes

In a bid to address the severe scarcity of the newly-redesigned Naira notes in circulation prevailing across the country, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is scheduled to meet in Abuja to review the crisis.

This is also as the regulatory bank denied disclosing its incapacity to meet the increasing Naira demand in the country, following reports that the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, had told members of the National Council of State during a meeting in Abuja, last Friday, that it might resort to placing fresh orders abroad as the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Plc (The Mint) suffers capacity constraints, resulting in the failure to print adequate N200, N500 and 1,000 denominations of the new notes.

It is gathered that CBN’s scheduled meeting, this Monday, will seek to consider recommendations of the National Council of State which had suggested re-circulating the old ones withdrawn from circulation in order to ease the current cash crunch.

The Council of State had recommended re-circulating the old notes in the event of the CBN lacking the capacity to print more of the redesigned N1,000, N500 and N200 notes.

The planned meeting at the bank’s headquarters in Abuja, is also expected to consider fresh directives to commercial banks on whether to keep accepting deposits of the old notes or not.

Meanwhile, a statement issued on Saturday, CBN spokesman, Osita Nwasinobi, stated at no time did the CBN governor, Emefiele tell the National Council of State during his presentation at its meeting, Friday, that the bank lacked the capacity to print more of the redesigned Naira notes.

Nwasinobi, however, admitted that the CBN is considering contracting firms outside the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Plc to print the redesigned naira notes.

According to Nwasinobi, Emefiele only told the meeting that the NSPMC was working on printing all denominations of the Naira to meet the transaction needs of Nigerians.

“CBN appreciates the concerns shown by all stakeholders about the distribution of the new Naira notes, but we are alarmed at the extent to which vested interests are attempting to manipulate facts and pitch the public against the Bank,” Nwasinobi said.

Nwasinobi assured that the CBN has ‘the capacity and enough materials to produce the required indent of the Naira for all,’ as he further appealed to the public to ‘disregard any contrary report to the stand of the CBN, by exercising more restraint, as they work to increase the circulation of the new notes in the country.’

Nwasinobi said the CBN remained committed to performing its monetary policy functions, as stipulated in the CBN Act, 2007 (as amended).

Making clarification on a particular voice note trending on the social media alleging that the CBN planned to shut down some banks, particularly in a particular geopolitical region of the country, the CBN spokesperson said there was no such plans.

“Nigerians have been advised to ignore such recordings as they do not represent the policy thrust of the CBN and are only the desperate attempts of persons bent on inciting the public against the Bank,” the statement read.

Till date, the So far, the NSPMC is reported to have printed N500 billion worth of the new N1,000, N500 and N200 notes, while the CBN had withdrawn about N2.1 trillion of the old notes from circulation.

It would be recalled that the country’s Supreme Court had, last Wednesday, February 8, restrained the CBN from implementing its decision to ban transactions in old Naira notes from February 10.

The CBN had initially set a January 31, 2022 deadline for the termination of use of the old Naira notes since the December 2022 introduction of the redesigned currencies, however, following appeals by the general public the Federal Government directed the regulatory bank to extend the deadline to February, February 10.

Ruling in a suit brought before it by three state governors of Zamfara, Kaduna and Kogi, a seven-member panel of the apex court led by Justice John Okoro, last Wednesday, ordered the CBN to halt implementation of the deadline by a week.

Though, the CBN has yet to officially announce any decision extending the use of the old Naira notes, the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Mr. Abubakar Malami, last Wednesday, disclosed that the Federal Government would comply with the Supreme Court ‘in line with the rule of law.’

“The order was granted by the Supreme Court and the order is to lapse on (next)Wednesday which is the day of the hearing. With that position in mind, we have taken steps to file an objection challenging the jurisdiction of the court to entertain the matter.

“Jurisdiction on the grounds that when you talk of monetary policy regardless of the characters they take, the Central Bank is an indispensable and a necessary party for that matter.

“What we have at hand is a situation where the Central Bank is not joined as a party and if the Central Bank as an institution is not joined as a party the position of the law is clear that the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court cannot be properly invoked.

“So we have given considerations to diverse issues inclusive of the issue of jurisdiction and come Wednesday we will argue the case from that perspective amongst others.

“There is no doubt the fact that the ruling of the supreme court regardless of the prevalent circumstances is binding and then within the context of the rule of law, you can equally take steps that are available to you within the context of the spirit and circumstances of the rule of law and what we are doing, in essence, is compliance with the rule of law both in terms of obedient to the ruling and in terms of challenging the ruling by way of putting our own side of the story, putting across our case, challenging jurisdiction.

“So the issue of obedience to the ruling of the Supreme Court is out of it. We are wholeheartedly in agreement that naturally we are bound by it and will comply accordingly but within the context of compliance, we shall challenge the ruling by way of filing an application seeking for it to be set aside, it is all about the rule of Law.

“The rule of law provides that there has to be obedience to the judgment and orders of the Supreme Court, the rule of law provides that when you are not happy with a ruling you can file an application for setting aside and in compliance with the rights and privileges vested in us as a government, we are equally looking at challenging the order and seeking for it to be set aside,” AGF Malami said.