Members of staff of the Central Bank of Nigeria on Sunday took the sensitisation drive on the old naira notes swap to some churches in Warri and Effurun in Delta State.
The CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, had in November announced that the deadline for the swap was January 31, however, on Sunday, the Federal Government extended the date by 10 days till February 10.
Tribune reported that on behalf of the CBN governor, the CBN’s Deputy Director of Finance and leader of the sensitisation team, Sunny Daibo, said that the idea was to enable them to educate larger crowds on the new cashless policy.
Daibo, who enlightened the congregation at Saint Anthony Catholic Church, Effurun, on the need to embrace the new cashless policy and ensure they met the deadline, also said flyers were distributed to worshippers.
Daibo said, “We have visited so many communities on this awareness drive and today we decided to focus on the church because that is where we can get large crowd to listen to us.
“This is a very good opportunity to let the people know about the new policy. The message is clear and well communicated to the worshippers.
“The message is that those that still have the old notes should go
and deposit them. Banks opened today (Sunday) from 11:00 a.m, so
as soon as the church service closed, they should take the old naira notes to their banks.
“On the issue of not getting the new naira notes, it is a matter of time, we have told the commercial banks to ensure they give out the new currency notes.”
Diabo reiterated that the N200, N500 and N1000 notes would cease to be legal tender after the expiration of the deadline and therefore, urged Nigerians to deposit their old notes before February 10, midnight.
He said that the apex bank gave an ample time of about three months for people to deposit their old notes and wondered why people are still waiting till the last minutes.