The deadline fixed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for the return of old N200, N500 and N1,000 banknotes elapsed on Friday, 10 February, and Nigerians have been left in a state of confusion and chaos.

A recent Supreme Court ruling had ordered the CBN not to end the use of old naira notes on 10 February, and the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, has notified Nigerians that the federal government will obey the ruling.

The order of interim injunction was given by a seven-member panel of the court, led by John Okoro, amid an acute scarcity of the newly redesigned notes.

Recall that the ruling followed an ex parte application filed by three states – Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara.

However, checks on the CBN website and its official social media pages today showed that the apex bank has yet to put out any notice to the public regarding this ruling.

This, therefore, means that the deadline initially stipulated by the bank still stands.

Meanwhile, Nigerians are still struggling to get new and old notes, businesses are still suffering as a result, and the hardship caused by this scarcity seems to be unending.

What this means is that the deadline extension for the naira swap seemed useless as Nigerians are still having a hard time getting the notes, resulting in rising tensions across the country.

Citizens have been frustrated to the point of embarking on protests and vandalising automated teller machines (ATMs) and banks.

The apex bank had said in December 2022 that the introduction of the new notes and by extension its cashless policy was an effort to fight corruption, terrorism, counterfeiting and vote-buying.

However beneficial this policy seems on paper, in actuality, there is an obvious crack in the implementation of it of which Nigerians are bearing the brunt.

CBN’s faulty communication

With regard to effectively communicating its ideas to Nigerians, the CBN has performed very poorly.

In light of the recent ruling by the Supreme Court and the federal government’s stance, it is expected that the apex bank would address Nigerians on what next to do. Instead of this, the media has been kept in the dark and by extension, millions of Nigerians.

Also, no concrete steps have been taken to ease the hardship citizens are facing as regards having access to their money.

The CBN still needs to come up with smart solutions on how to address the complaints by citizens and commercial banks.

The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, should officially address Nigerians on the true state of things in light of recent happenings, to put an end to the ongoing confusion.

Photo source: Presidency Nigeria