By Ben Adoga
Following difficulties and hard times faced by Nigerians, especially residents of the FCT in accessing the redesigned Naira notes and the apprehension of me t being able to change old notes, the FCT Administration has decided to take sensitisation to rural communities after the extension of the deadline.
The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN recently announced the redesign of three of Nigeria’s currency notes. These are the N1,000, N500 and N200 notes.
The CBN had set a deadline of 31st January 2023, for all old Naira notes to seize being legal tender, however, after much pressure the deadline had been extended by 10 days.
In view of this, the Federal Capital Territory Administration took the initiative of carrying out a sensitisation and advocacy campaign to all the six area councils of the FCT with the aim of ensuring that no one is left ignorant of the current development and the urgency required in taking all old notes to the bank before they seize to be legal tender.
While briefing the Sensitisation team, the Director, Reform Coordinator and Service Improvement, Dr. Jumai Ahmadu, encouraged the team to ensure that the message was passed across in all the indigenous languages of FCT and the major languages in Nigeria.
She encouraged the team to ensure that all public places, market areas and highly populated areas were duly addressed.
The first visit which was to the palace of the Esu of Bwari was met with a warm welcome. The Esu of Bwari was pleased at the concern of the Administration.
During the visit of the team to Kuje Area Council, the Gomo of Kuje, HRH Haruna Tanko Jibrin in his remarks, expressed his appreciation and applauded the Administration for taking up the initiative. He declared his stance with the Federal Government on the redesigning of the Naira notes “as far as it is for the good of Nigerians and the betterment of the Nigerian economy, I support this policy of the FG.”
On his part, the Ona of Abaji, HRM Alh Dr Adamu Baba Yunusa who welcomed the team drew the attention of the government to the non-availability of the redesigned notes in his domain.
“I personally went had to the bank and requested to be paid in the new notes but sadly, I was informed that it was not available,” he said.
Also, the Aguma of Gwagwalada, HRH Muhammed Magaji expressed his displeasure with the banks’ inability to feed the ATMs with the new notes for people to access, in spite of the short period of extension.
