After four days, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has concurred to the last Friday’s judgement of the Supreme Court which ruled that both old and new naira notes should continue to serve as legal tender until December 31st, this year.
However, the ratification of the apex bank is coming four days after the Friday, March 3rd judgment.
Though the CBN did not issue any statement to that effect, but the clarification came from a media interview with the CBN spokesperson, Isa Abdulmumin, who said both the old and new notes are legal tender and banks are currently issuing to customers.
In his voice, “Banks are paying old notes as well as new notes. They are all legal tender,” he said.
“Yes, the CBN has not issued an official statement on the issue. Anyone banks give to you, you can collect. We just want to make life easy for Nigerians.”
While expressing concern on the continued rejection of the old notes by some traders and transporters, he made it clear that in line with the Supreme Court judgement, the old notes should not be rejected as they are still a valid means of exchange.
Already, checks in parts of Lagos showed that many commercial banks have started dispensing available old N500 and N1,000 in their vaults.
