The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has asked banks to start collecting old N500 and N1,000 notes from customers.
Osita Nwanisobi, spokesman of the apex bank, disclosed this on Friday, stating that any amount above N500,000 could not be deposited.
The development comes amid the nationwide outrage over the rejection of the notes which President Muhammadu Buhari declared were no longer legal tender.
In his national broadcast, Buhari had asked Nigerians to take old N500 and N1000 notes to the CBN and other designated places, but commercial banks refused to accept them, forcing Nigerians to troop to the apex bank offices.
In Lagos, the bank officials struggled to control the crowd and directed them to commercial banks but the people refused.
An official of the Lagos CBN office who spoke off the record said the apex bank accepted that since the deadline for depositing the old naira notes had been shifted to April 10, deposits below N500,000 could be made at commercial banks while 500k above would be at CBN branches.
On Thursday, CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, appealed to Nigerians to allow the naira redesign policy work.
He said this in an interview with State House Correspondents after meeting President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential villa in Abuja.
He said the pains currently associated with the policy were temporary, making a case that the policy would enhance government’s fight against corruption and boost the economy.
He had said: “The truth is that we are all servants. We are serving Nigerians. As far as we are concerned the Attorney General has spoken on this matter and the President has sealed the whole issue this morning in his broadcast. I think I can only just appeal to Nigerians, let’s allow this policy to work.
“This policy is one policy that goes to reduce the problem of corruption and illicit financial flaws; this policy goes to resolve some of the problems in the economy; this policy also goes to reducing the level of insecurity in the country.
“So these three issues which are the tripod of this administration’s policy are all embedded in this policy. We should just allow it to work. We keep saying this, there are some temporary pains, but I can assure Nigerians that the long-run benefit to Nigeria is overwhelming and we should just give it a chance to work.”
