The Nigerian Bar Association, Bwari-FCT Branch, in line with her mandate as social crusader, yesterday, the 26th of January, 2023 engaged all the commercial banks within her jurisdiction on the need to issue the public with the new Naira notes without further delay.

The Chairman, Monday Adjeh noted that the masses are troubled due to the scarcity of the new naira notes. Most shops, transporters and supermarkets including market women are no longer accepting the old naira notes.

The Chairman noted that the NBA owes the public a duty to find answers to the questions surrounding this unacceptable development in the mind of the masses. Particularly when the
Federal Government Nigeria has fixed the 31st of January, 2023 as deadline for the exchange exercise.

The new notes came into circulation on the 15th of December, 2022, surprisingly, these notes were not seen anywhere in the public as expected until middle of January, 2023 in the hands of very few individuals. In view of the deadline, members of the public became apprehensive and some started rejecting the old notes.

CBN had earlier implied that the new notes are available in quantity enough to replace the old notes but information coming from the commercial banks states otherwise.

In each and every bank visited, the story is almost the same. that enough new notes were not supplied to the banks. The banks loads the new notes into the ATM Machines which oftentimes would be exhausted within one hours; while the banks still pay the old notes across the counter.

There is no where the banks agreed to pay the new Naira notes across the counter rather, they pay out the same old notes that they are trying to phase out.