By Ignatius Okorocha, Abuja
The Senate on Wednesday appealed to the Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN) to extend the cash withdrawal limit policy to June 30th, 2023.
The Senate’s appeal followed the adoption of a motion sponsored by Senator Ali Ndume from Borno South.
Leading debate on the motion, Senator Ndume said that ending circulation of old Naira in January will impose serious hardship on Nigerians and call for extension to June June 30,2023.
“First of all let me say that it is my opinion and that of the general public that is insisting that the old Naira notes must be withdrawn from circulation by the end of January that I am objecting to because it will pose a problem.
“We had this problem in 1984 and we don’t want to have a repeat of that experience. There is no hurry in closing the exchange of old currency with the new ones. It is a good idea to have a better Nigeria “notes.
” I am in support of it but the timing is what I object to. Nigerians don’t have banking facilities everywhere, I said it before and I am still repeating it again now because time is getting close he said.
Continuing Ndume further noted,”For example in Borno and Yobe states, we don’t have many banks for effective implementation of the new policy. We have 27 local government areas and only five banks in those LGAs and we are known for trading and going from market to market to buy cash crops and other things. There are no banks nor POS in those areas and the operational ones don’t even have network.
“The new currency in circulation is not seen anywhere and I only saw the new note today in the chamber.
And so I am calling for extension of the exercise to 30 of June 2023.”
