The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said on Saturday the redesign of the naira notes was initiated to make Nigeria’s monetary policy decisions more effective, and promote financial inclusion.
The CBN’s Director of Communication, Osita Nwasinobi, who disclosed this at the 44th Kaduna international trade fair in Kaduna, said the policy would complement the efforts of security agents in their fights against bandits and other criminal elements in the northern part of the country.
Nwasinobi, who was represented at the fair by CBN’s Director of Capacity Development, Mohammed Abbah, advised Nigerians to make use of alternative payment channels such as eNaira and internet banking for their daily transactions.
He stressed that the policy was never intended to plunge Nigerians into hardship or targeted anyone.
The scarcity of the redesigned Naira notes had crippled activities in the country with Nigerians daily keeping vigil at Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) posts to cash money for their daily usage.
Abbah said: “The principal aim of the bank, with the currency redesign initiative, is to make our monetary policy decisions more efficacious.
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“Nigerians will observe that there has been a downward trend in inflation and the exchange rates have been relatively stable.
“Furthermore, we aim to increase financial inclusion in the country by reducing the number of the unbanked population.
“Thirdly, our aim is to support the efforts of our security agencies in combating banditry and ransom-taking in Nigeria through this programme.
“The CBN is not unmindful of the challenges some citizens have had to face in the past few weeks in efforts to get money from their banks or other alternative channels.
“Indeed, there have been reports of occasional transaction failures. However, we wish to assure you that the Nigerian payment system infrastructure is robust enough to handle the surging transaction volumes across all channels.”
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