By Kamsi Anayo
The Leadership of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MCBAN), has appealed to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to extend the deadline for the depositing of the old currency notes to commercial banks by three months.
Miyetti Allah’s plea on Thursday apparently followed a resolution of the Senate on Wednesday to provide legislative support to the CBN for the redesign of the N1,000, N500 and N200 naira notes.
The upper chamber made this resolution after a heated debate on a motion moved by Senator Uba Sani on CBN’s policy to redesign the three Naira notes.
Majority of the Senators across party lines supported the redesign of the naira but some of them expressed concern about the deadline set by the apex bank for the old notes to be deposited in commercial banks.
The apex bank had on Oct. 26 announced that it would redesign the N200, N500, and N1,000 notes.
CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, who announced this during a special press briefing, said the new design and issues would be effective from December 15, 2022 and end on 31 January, 2023 when the old notes would cease to be legal tender.
Reacting to the development on Thursday, the leader of MCBAN
in the South-East Zone, Gidado Siddiki, in Awka, the Anambra state capital, said extension of time would enable his members who majorly lived in the forests and bushes, as a result of their accestral business (grazing), to bring out their savings for exchange to the redesigned naira notes to avoid huge losses on their money.
Siddiki who said the Association was fully in support of the CBN’S policy, said, “Why we are appealing is because in 1985 when similar policy was announced, so many of our people that were in their grazing settlements at the rural areas across the country lost their money because of the promptness of information.
“They could not meet up with the timeframe given by the Apex Bank. The two weeks given then was not enough for them to meet up and majority of the herders lost their longtime savings because, many of the herders do not have acount numbers, do not keep their money in the bank. They kept and protect their money locally.
“We cannot fight or reverse government policies as law abiding citizens of Nigeria; we are only appealing to the CBN to help us extend the deadline for another three months so as to enable the leadership of Miyetti Allah to reach out properly to those living in out-of-telecommunication areas across states of the federation,” Siddiki stated.
