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President Muhammadu Buhari has Wednesday unveiled the redesigned naira notes.
The redesigned 200, 500 and 1000 notes were unveiled before the start of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by the President at Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Buhari said the redesigning of the new naira notes would not only help the country to address the issue of illicit financial flows and corruption but also improve the economy and the value of the Nigerian currency.
The President, who said the currency redesign would also help the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) monetary policy initiative, added that the first set of currency which was printed locally by the Nigeria Printing and Minting Company would prevent counterfeiting of the notes.
He, however, appealed to Nigerians to embrace the new policy to re-design the naira.
The CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, while briefing, warned Nigerians against holding of the old notes, saying there was no going back on the January 31st 2023 deadline to completely render the old notes useless.
He said redesigning the banknotes was based on the fact that currency management had faced several daunting challenges that had continued to grow in scale and sophistication with attendant and unintended consequences for the integrity of both the CBN and the country.
He added that previous efforts by the CBN to redesign and re-issue new naira notes had been resisted by the political class in the country.
He explained that more than N2.73 trillion out of the N3.23 trillion currency in circulation was outside the banking sector which, he said, was “unacceptable.”
He said with the new development, the CBN aimed to take control of money supply by mopping up all cash from the economy, both within the vaults of banks and in the hands of citizens.
This is the first time in almost 20 years that Nigeria will redesign its naira notes.