Kaduna residents ignore El-Rufai, deposit old notes at CBN

Despite the stance of Governor Nasir El-Rufai that old notes remain legal tender, residents of Kaduna besieged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in the state to deposit their old naira notes.

In a nationwide broadcast on Thursday morning, President Muhammadu Buhari limited the legal tender status of old notes to only N200, directing Nigerians to deposit old N500 and N1, 000 notes at CBN offices.

But El-Rufai asked residents to continue to use the old and new notes side by side without any fear.

The governor, however, vowed to seal off any facility that refuse to accept the old notes as legal tender and prosecute the owners.

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Our correspondent reports that as early as 3am, residents moved to the premises of the apex bank for fear of losing their hard earned money.

However, as at 7.30 am, hundreds of residents were seen waiting for the process to commence.

A resident, Badamasi Aliyu, who spoke with our correspondent said, “I stay in Kawo, Kaduna North Local Government but because I needed to get to the CBN’ office very early, I was forced to rent a hotel nearby to beat the time. I came here around 3am and my number was 134. The process has been very tedious but I pray I will be able to deposit my money.”

Another resident, Mary Auta, said she was at the bank on Thursday but could not deposit her money because of the crowd.

“I was here on Thursday, but nobody, no staff of the bank, attended to us. I am hoping that they will attend to us today (Friday),” she said.

Responding, a CBN official, Mukhtar Maigamo, said the process is on and CBN staff are attending to them one after the other.

According to him, “Many of the residents came to us with deposits of below N500, 000 and we are only expected to collect deposits of N500, 000 and above. Residents with deposits below N500, 000 are expected to go to commercial banks for their deposits.”