Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has directed commercial banks to adhere to President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive to make available N200 notes for circulation.
The CBN governor stated this when he fielded questions from State House correspondents after a closed door meeting with Buhari on Thursday in Abuja.
Emefiele said he met with about 15 commercial banks chiefs and directed them to ensure that the old N200 note remained a legal tender from now till April 10.
He explained that the meeting with the bank executives was to ensure sufficient supply of the old N200 notes to alleviate the sufferings of Nigerians.
“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 flows; 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-term benefit to Nigeria is overwhelming and we should just give it a chance to work,” he said.
In a similar development, the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, Ado Doguwa, who also spoke to State House correspondents after his closed door meeting with the President, expressed reservations over the implementation of the naira redesign policy.
According to him, the way and manner the policy is being implemented is making the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) unpopular towards the general elections.
Doguwa is the Chairman of the Special Adhoc Committee on Naira Redesign, Cashless Policy and Naira Swap.
He said the committee came to see the president in spite of his broadcast and his directives to the CBN governor to commend him for that but to also tell him that “It is not yet Uhuru.”
The House leader said he told Buhari that the Committee would continue to interface with the CBN on the implementation of his directives.
He added that the Green Chamber would not hesitate to invoke the instrumentality of law to call the CBN boss to order if he derailed from implementing the directive.
“One important thing I want to stress is that Mr. President has addressed most of the issues we want to raise with him in the national broadcast this morning.
“But that notwithstanding, Mr. President allowed us to meet him believing the fact that the Committee coming to him represents the institution of the National Assembly.
“And when you have issues to do with policies of government, you have matters that border on lives and livelihood of our people, the best institution to speak for Nigerians is this institution, the National Assembly and in this case, the House of Representatives.
“What excites us is that when we met Mr. President, he was already on ground with those agencies that have something to do with this issue of naira redesign and naira swap.
“The CBN governor was there at his instance, the representative of the Ministry of Finance was there, the AGF was also represented there, the inspector General of Police was also there,” said Doguwa.
