The release of the new naira notes, which formally entered into circulation on Thursday, was met with mixed emotions, as many bank customers demanded the new banknotes while others rejected them in banking halls of major Nigerian towns.InformationGuideNigeria

The freshly redesigned N1,000, N500, and N200 bills finally became legal money on December 15, 2022, more than three weeks after President Major General Muhammadu Buhari (ret.) unveiled them at the weekly meeting of the Federal Executive Council.NYSC Portal

Godwin Emefiele, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, revealed on October 26 plans to redesign the N200, N500, and N1,000 banknotes. He also stated that the old denominations would cease to be legal tender on January 31, 2022.

Emefiele emphasized that the redesign of the local currency was required to combat inflationary difficulties, currency counterfeiting, insecurity, and other challenges plaguing Nigeria.

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He added that the redesign of the currency was intended to regulate monies in circulation and ransom payments to kidnappers and terrorists.JAMB Result

Our correspondents, who visited banking halls in many cities throughout the country on Thursday, particularly in Lagos and Abuja, noted that numerous bank branches had exhausted the little supply of new banknotes provided to them by their headquarters as early as noon.

Further investigation found that a number of bank branches had not yet received their new note allocations, with numerous bank personnel advising our reporters that the fresh notes were still pending.

When our journalists visited bank branches in Lagos, a few of the bank offices had run out of their fresh note allocations. However, employees at a few of the centres that still held the new currency told The PUNCH that their allocations were extremely limited.

A representative of Access Bank Plc at the Ojodu branch in Lagos, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to talk on the topic, stated, “Each cashier was given N100,000 of the new N1,000 bill for onward disbursements to customers requesting over-the-counter payments. We do not currently have more N500 and N200 denominations. We do not have enough fresh currency notes at this time.”

In addition, our correspondent saw that the bank branch’s ATMs dispensed only outdated naira notes.

Customers were also observed depositing old banknotes over the counter, while cashiers distributed more old naira bills at the center.

In a few instances, though, cashiers were observed mixing a few fresh naira notes with old banknotes in OTC transactions.

Meanwhile, in some of the banking rooms visited by our journalists, some clients refused to accept the new bills as legal cash after hearing that local merchants had rejected them.

Consequently, several bank customers refused to accept the new notes for over-the-counter transactions.

A bank teller in Ogba, Lagos, confirmed the issue by telling one of our journalists, “Some customers have been rejecting the new naira notes whenever we deliver them; they claim that the new notes would not be collected from them on the market; they prefer the old notes.”

A bank clerk informed a customer requesting new currency that she had exhausted her supply.

When the customer insisted on receiving his money in the new currency, the cashier approached a colleague to get some.

“You are eager to get the new notes but many of the customers I attended to today refused to take it from me,” the cashier said.