This is as the Feb.10 deadline for the legal tender status of the old notes expired on Friday.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that stakeholders across the country are expressing frustration in accessing the new Naira notes.
While traders and other small business owners have stopped accepting the old Naira notes across the country, Nigerians who are still in possession of the old notes are left stranded.
This is in spite of a Supreme Court ruling, which urged the Federal Government to accept the old notes as legal tender until Feb. 15.
The apex court’s ruling was on a suit brought before it by the governors of Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara states, seeking to halt the Naira redesign policy.
The Supreme Court had in a unanimous ruling granted an interim injunction restraining the Federal Government from implementing the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN’s) Feb. 10 deadline for the swapping of the old naira notes with the new ones.
A financial expert, Mr Okechukwu Unegbu, urged the government to obey the ruling.
Unegbu, who is a past President of the Chattered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), said that there was no need for Nigerians to panic.
He said that the law mandates the CBN to accept the old Naira notes in exchange for the new ones anytime they were presented.
He urged the apex bank to obey provisions of the act that set it up, adding that the Naira redesign policy and currency swap were supposed to be long term projects.
“The President should imstruct the CBN governor to hold on until when the Supreme Court will consider the matter on Feb. 15.
