The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has stated that most banks in Ogun State are already flooded with new notes ahead of the 31 January deadline for withdrawing old notes from circulation.
The CBN also stated that its two-week monitoring of bank activities in the state revealed that commercial banks and their Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) were largely dispensing the new notes.
CBN officials stated this after inspecting bank branches in Ewekoro, Ifo, Sango Local Government, and Ijebu-Ode Sagamu to ensure compliance with the apex bank’s directive that the new notes be distributed to customers.
Alh Wahab Lanre Oseni, the CBN Branch Controller in Abeokuta, who led officials from the apex bank to monitor money deposits and withdrawals in the Abeokuta metropolis, confirmed that new Naira notes had now flooded the banks.
Also, while speaking with market women at Awolowo market in Sagamu on the need to accept the old notes till 6-7pm of January 31st 2023, he hinted that enough new notes have been supplied in Ogun state and in other states.
“We have told the people we spoke to that we have supplied enough currencies in Ogun state and I’m very sure it is the same in the other states in the country. However, let me be specifically on Ogun state, this problem was there when we just started. Right from two weeks ago, last week and this week, the situation has improved.
“Like we have promised, the Ijebu sector has been witnessing improvement since Monday this week. The improvement will continue as fast as possible right from where we are even talking here.
“The banks have what is sufficient for public to collect. For you to know, there are sanctions that are being carried out on those banks or that bank that may be paying out the old notes. They can be collecting it, but they must not pay it. There is improvement in term of sufficient supply now in all the banks.
He also urged consumers to report any bank that remove excess charges or money from their account as no bank should remove any charges from any account for deposit of any amount till January 31st, 2023.
“The email of consumer protection department has been given to them. If they don’t want to go through internet, whoever that feel cheated can physically come to CBN Abeokuta branch; they are free to enter. We always make sure that we sanction the bank that is affected except that bank has reasonable explanation against the person who actually launched the complaint.
“The findings were that improvement has commenced. One or two banks we saw old notes, they have been contacted and the sanction has been carried out upon such a bank. We have about 95% compliance now in the area we have gone to.
“We monitored all the banks and ATMs in the state and ensured that they dispensed the new notes.
“This is in line with CBN efforts to ensure that the new notes go round and reach the citizens,” he said.
He, however, gives security tips to look out for in the need naira notes to know the difference between fake and original.
“We told our people that they should check the gold, that triangular golden feature is one. When you touch that for one or two/three minutes, that one will not bleach. But the one that you even say is bleaching, that bleaching you saw is not bleach. It is security feature especially the #1000 when put tissue paper and you see it looking like blue, that is the security of that one.
“The other one, where you don’t find blue when you use tissue paper is fake. They are so many other security features that we cannot use our naked eyes to see.
“We monitored all the banks and ATMs in the state and ensured that they dispensed the new notes.
“This is in line with CBN efforts to ensure that the new notes go round and reach the citizens,” he said.
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