From Uche Usim, Abuja

 

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, on Tuesday disclosed that the redesigned naira notes hitherto slated for unveiling on December 15 has been brought forward to Wednesday (tomorrow) and would be launched by President Muhammadu Buhari, at the Presidential villa, Abuja.

He also ruled out extension of the lifespan of the old notes, insisting that by January 31, 2023, the old currency ceases to become legal tender.

Emefiele, who made the disclosure at a media briefing to mark the end of the 288th Monetary Policy Committee meeting and the last in 2022, urged those in possession of the old notes to hurriedly offload them at the nearest bank to beat the deadline.

“If you’re a diasporan, we will not wait for you. You should not keep the naira. You don’t need it. You don’t spend naira.

“We thank Mr President for ever supporting us because when we were being harassed, he defended the actions of CBN.

“We also thank security agencies who worked with us to see a smooth transition especially the EFCC to help monitor the flows. We thank the Senate for support despite all odds.

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“Having said all these, let me say that we won’t shift the deadline. Capital No. What we have done is not against the law. Upon release of new currency, it will run concurrently with the old notes till January 31, 2023. That’s 100 days to make the transition.

As for the new notes, we are no longer waiting till December 15 to release them. The new currencies will be unveiled tomorrow”, he said.

On decisions taken by the MPC, the CBN Governor the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) (lending rate) from has been hiked from 15.5% it was pegged in September to 16.5%, indicating a 100 basis points increase.

The MPC also retained the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR), being a percentage of a bank’s total deposit that must be maintained with the CBN at 32.5; asymmetric corridor at -100/+700 basis point around the MPR and liquidity ratio at 30 percent.

“For us, we feel happy that the decisions we took in May, July and September have started yielding results. It’ll be sustained all things being equal and ultimately, the inflation will come down. We were aggressive in September efforts”, he said.

This is the highest rate adopted by the CBN after it held the Minimum Rediscounted Rate (MRR) at 15 per cent on August 17, 2003.

Emefiele attributed the continued of challenges of the Nigerian economy to global disruptions with attendant, food crisis, high energy cost, disrupted supply chains worsened by COVID-19 induced lockdown in China, among others.

On flood ravaged states, the CBN Governor assured that plans were afoot to check astronomical rise in food prices, especially grains, appropriate quantities will be released from the strategic reserves into the markets to stabilise prices.