Guarantee Trust Bank (GTB) And Other Banks Resume Disbursing Old N500, N1000 Notes
Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) have resumed disbursement of old naira notes of N500, and N1,000 to customers, implying that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) may have given tacit approval to re-circulate the old notes.
Findings by Daily Global News revealed that Sterling Bank at Iyana Ipaja and Access Bank dispensed the old notes of N500 and N1,000 to customers yesterday, and Sterling Bank also loaded the same on their Automated Teller Machines (ATM) for withdrawal.
A staff of Access Bank, Agbara branch, also confirmed that they paid customers with old notes yesterday both across the counter and through the ATM, though the staff could not confirm if there was a directive to that effect either from CBN or from their bank.
“For banks to dispense old Naira notes to customers only means one thing: the CBN has run out of stock of the new currency notes but lack the courage to admit they are in a tight corner,” a former banker who worked in one of the old generation banks to our correspondent.
This development flows from the Supreme Court judgment last week which extended the validity of all the old Naira notes to December 2023.
However, most people on the streets of Lagos and the markets have continued to reject the old notes in obvious wait for a pronouncement by the apex bank. “I cannot accept the old notes in exchange unless the CBN says so,” Chibueze Ohabajuo, a dealer on domestic cooking gas, told his customer who had come to refill gas on Monday.
At the Agbara market in Lagos, few traders said they could only accept it at a premium cost, implying that the customer would not be given any balance in a transaction where the old note was not exhausted.
Some branches of Guarantee Trust Bank (GTB) also issued old notes, while some other banks are yet to commence insisting until they get a directive from the apex bank.
The CBN had not officially issued a bank-wide circular instructing the Deposit money bank to comply with the apex court’s judgment on the validity of the old naira notes. But a source at GTB disclosed that management issued a directive to begin paying old notes in their vault.
Governor of the CBN, Godwin Emefiele, has remained silent as to whether to obey the judgment of the Supreme Court or not. But observers say that Emefiele is waiting on President Muhammadu Buhari for an order as to what to do.
In a unanimous judgment, a seven-member panel of justices presided over by Justice Inyang Okoro, on Friday, held that the directive by President Muhammadu Buhari to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for the redesigning and withdrawal of old notes of N200, N500, and N1,000, without consultation with the states, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) and the National Council of State and other stakeholders, was unconstitutional.
The apex court observed that no reasonable notice was given before the implementation of the policy as provided under the CBN Act.
However, since the judgment, the presidency and the CBN have remained silent, leaving the public more confused as to whether to transact with the old notes or not.
