The attendant hardship brought on Nigerians by the failed new naira redesign policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria could last longer than expected as the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Plc (NSPM) confessed that it has put adequate arrangements in place to ensure continuous production of the redesigned naira notes, erasing the prospects of a return to the use of the old notes. This serves as a confirmation that enough new Naira bills were not printed before deadlines for old Naira bills stoppage were set.
Recall, Theliberationnews exclusively reported that the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, in a diplomatic admittance of the policy’s failure, recently met with President Buhari for approval to print the new naira series outside the country. This, however, exposed the rash decision of the apex bank to hastily phase out the old naira notes.
Although, this report of CBN Naira redesign failure, as reliably gathered from our impeccable sources, has since been feebly debunked by the apex bank when it claimed that the NMPSC has the ability to ensure unabated printing of the new notes.
With the latest deadline for the exchange of old naira notes for the new series around the corner, it remains to be seen how many more new N200, N500 and N1000 bills the CBN will print to augment the current shortfalls that is causing Nigerians unabated agony.
Further denying the claim of the lack of capacity of the Mint to produce the new naira notes, the NSPMC managing director, Ahmed Halilu also dismissed reports that De-la-Rue of the United Kingdom will produce banknotes for the country, adding the UK firm neither manufactures nor supplies paper substrate to the currency industry.
In a statement issued on Saturday, he said: “The attention of the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting (NSPM) Plc has been drawn to some publications allegedly credited to the Central Bank Governor about the capacity of NSPM to continue the production of redesigned banknotes owing to supply chain constraints,” the statement reads.
“While the CBN has debunked the false claim, we also find it expedient to add that contrary to the mischievous claim, De-la-Rue of United Kingdom does not produce nor supply paper substrate within the currency industry.
“We wish to further assure Nigerians that NSPM has made adequate arrangement to continuously produce redesigned Banknotes as well as other denominations in line with the CBN indent for the year 2023.”
Nigerians have lost faith in CBN under Emefiele and it might just be the right time for him to honorably resign and save the country from further avoidable financial turbulence.
