Old naira notes ceased to be legal tender on February 10 – CBN

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said that despite a Supreme Court order, the old N200, N500 and N1,000 notes are no longer legal tender.

The Supreme Court had issued an order barring the CBN from implementing the February 10 expiration date for the old notes.

CBN’s branch controller in Bauchi, Haladu Idris Andaza, speaking to journalists on Monday, said the deadline was not extended.

He, however, said customers are allowed to still deposit the old notes in its branches nationwide but they can no longer be used for transactions.

Andaza said; “For the avoidance of doubt, we wish to state categorically that CBN is ready and is open to receive all of those old notes based on certain conditions and criteria.

Customers are free to come to the bank and deposit which they cannot do at the commercial banks anymore because the currency has ceased to be a legal tender since the 10th of this month.”

Andaza further said that anybody who still has the old naira notes and wishes to submit them will first have to visit CBN portal.

“The management of the CBN decided that those customers will have a sigh of relief by coming to the offices of the CBN in all the 36 states in the federation including FCT to deposit their money.

The customer has to go to the CBN portal and fill a form in the portal, there will be a form there concerning this currency redesign and exchange”, he said.