James Sowole in Abeokuta
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in pursuance of one of its policies of cash swap, yesterday, dispensed new naira notes to several bank customers through some accredited Point of Sale (POS) operators in Abeokuta, Ogun State capital.
The POS operators were assembled at the palace of Alake of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun Aremu Gbadebo, in the heart of Abeokuta, where several bank customers were allowed to withdraw N10,000 each.
The exercise, which attracted several members of the public immediately the news filtered in in Abeokuta, served as relief for several bank customers.
The CBN team leader, Dr, Adeniyi Adenuga, told journalists that the exercise was carried out to enable people have easy access to the redesigned new naira notes.
Adenuga said, “The essence of today’s programme in Alake’s palace in Abeokuta is for us to alleviate the suffering of the people of Abeokuta in particular.
“What we are doing here is one of the policies of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) that has to do with the cash swap where you make direct impact to the people and each person is entitled to take the maximum of N10,000.
“If you bring your old notes, the agent will take the old notes from you and then you are given the new notes whether in N200, N500 or N1,000 notes. The essence of this programme is to ensure that we make impact to the grassroots.
“The swapping of the old notes for new notes does not require any charge, but if you want to use the ATM, of course, the agent is expected to charge the normal charges, not like what we are having elsewhere where people are charging arbitrarily like N1,000 for N10,000, Here, they are charging the normal rate that they are expected to charge.
“The old notes are still legal tenders from what we know when the last extension was made to February 10.
“If you recall, there is supposed to be a grace period for those who were unable to lodge in money to the deposit money banks up to February 17, they are still allowed to take it to the Central Bank, in whichever state they are, they can go to the Central Bank branch there and deposit the money, as at now, that is what I can say.
“Yesterday, the Ogun State team went round, you know there are other channels through which we can access the new notes, you can get it across the counter, you can also get it through ATMs, you can get it through the agents. Our investigation revealed that the ATMs were working.
“What we are doing here is not going to end here. But like I said, people can still go to their banks and make use of the ATMs and they can also get money across the counter.”
Some beneficiaries of the exercise commended the CBN for the exercise which had provided succour for them.
