Banks will accept old naira notes after deadline, says Emefiele

Abubakar Yunusa, Abuja

Godwin Emefiele, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), says banks will continue to accept old naira notes after the stipulated deadline.

Emefiele spoke on Tuesday when he appeared at an interactive session with the house of representatives ad hoc committee on the currency redesign and naira swap policy.

He said the CBN will also accept the old naira from banks after the February 10 deadline.

Emefiele made reference to the CBN act which mandates the apex bank to continue to accept old notes after its expiration.

However, the CBN governor did not mention a duration when the banks will stop collecting the old notes.

Section 20 (3) of the CBN act states: “Notwithstanding sub-sections (1) and (2) of this section, the bank shall have power, if directed to do so by the president and after giving reasonable notice in that behalf, to call in any of its notes or coins on payment of the face value thereof and any note or coin with respect to which a notice has been given under this sub-section, shall, on the expiration of the notice, cease to be legal tender, but, subject to section 22 of this act, shall be redeemed by the bank upon demand”.

Speaking further on the CBN act, he explained that even after the old currency has lost its legal tender status “we (CBN) are mandated to collect these money (old notes) and I stand with the house of representatives on this”.

“What does that mean? It could (old notes) have lost its legal tender status which means we have moved on. But if you have your money that you have not been able to send to the bank, we will certainly give you the opportunity to bring them back into the CBN to redeem it. Either you pay it to your bank account or you want to do exchange, we will give you. You will not lose your money. This is the assurance I give to Nigerians,” Emefiele said.

Osinbajo: Cashless policy will curb illicit election financing in Nigeria

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo says a cashless policy, when effectively operated in Nigeria, can help stem the surge of illicit election financing.

Osinbajo spoke when he received a delegation of the EU election observation mission led by Barry Andrews, on Monday.

In a statement by Laolu Akande, his spokesperson, the politician reasoned that an effective cashless policy will make it easy to track funds and will be useful for financial inclusion.

“I think that what we should be looking at is to provide more infrastructures,” he said.

“The cashless thing has been really advantageous and helps with tracking.

“That sort of infrastructure is useful for more financial inclusion and the more financial inclusion you have, the easier it is to track.

“So much money can be spent without it being tracked under the current election financing practices in the country.’’

Further speaking, Osinbajo highlighted the difficulty in controlling election financing because of cash transactions.

He said there are still infrastructural issues required to be in place to ensure an efficient cashless system in the country.

“With cash transactions, it is still difficult to seriously control election financing,” he added.

On electoral crime, he said the electoral offences commission bill is already at the national assembly.

Osinbajo expressed hope that it would begin a new regime of dealing with electoral offences which would be helpful.

“By and large, one shouldn’t expect INEC to be the investigator of electoral offences,” the politician said.

“I think that law enforcement agencies should be responsible for arresting and prosecuting offenders, state by state.

“Electoral offences are always seen through a political prism; people will always feel that they are being prosecuted because they belong to a certain party.

“What is more important is that we have to find a system where the police could have a special unit for offences during the course of elections.

“The federal high courts could also have a special jurisdiction to deal with offences and not extend beyond the federal high courts.”

Also commenting on the role of the judicial system, Osinbajo said more attention should be paid to the monitoring of tribunals and their outcomes.

In addition, he called for more scrutiny from the national judicial council.

“There should be sanctions and that way, we would be able to clean up and correct some of the problems,’’ he said.

On his part, Andrews said the mission would be monitoring the coming elections and hope for a peaceful and fair electoral process.