Godwin Emefiele, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, has stated that point-of-sale employees who charge more than N200 for the CBN cash swap program will be detained and imprisoned when discovered.
During a visit to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday to discuss the bank’s monetary and currency reform policies, he made this statement.
He spoke: “The situation is substantially calming down since the commencement of over-the-counter payments to complement ATM disbursements and the use of super-agents. There is, therefore, no need to consider any shift from the deadline of February 10.”
Before then, the Federal Government had been prevented by the Supreme Court from carrying out the currency swap’s February 10 deadline.
An interim injunction prohibiting the Federal Government, the Central Bank of Nigeria, and commercial banks from enforcing the Friday terminal date for the old naira notes was granted by a seven-member panel of the Supreme Court, chaired by Justice John Okoro, in a unanimous decision.
Additionally, the CBN was advised to extend the deadline of February 10 for exchanging old naira notes for newly designed ones by the International Monetary Fund last week.
The IMF provided the advice in response to the difficulties Nigerians had nationwide during the currency swap procedure.
The IMF said in a statement, “In light of hardships caused by disruptions to trade and payments due to the shortage of new banknotes available to the public, despite measures introduced by the CBN to mitigate the challenges in the banknote swap process, the IMF encourages the CBN to consider extending the deadline, should problems persist in the next few days leading up to the February 10, 2023 deadline.”