By Christiana Ekpa
The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, on Thursday said that new cashless policy was not based on political consideration, even as he revealed that the CBN ordered for 500 million pieces of currency for the printing of the redesigned Naira notes.
Emefiele disclosed this when he appeared before the House of Representatives to brief the lawmakers on the CBN’s redesign of the Naira as well as the new cash withdrawal limit.
Represented by the Deputy Governor, Financial Systems Stability, Mrs Aisha Ahmad, CBN Governor said the pieces of currency were ordered from the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company Limited.
Speaking on the issue of fake currency, he said, “We are doing a lot of sensitization because we believe that sensitization can’t just be the newspapers, the television and radio. We need to go into the rural areas, the markets and use people in the communities to actually drive home the message. It takes time but over time it improves.”
He also said the new cashless policy was not based on any political consideration as the CBN is an independent institution, whose decisions are based research, data and the efforts of many teams working together across its different directorates.
The CBN Governor said electronic transfers in the country as at October 2022 stood at 300 trillion naira from N3 trillion in 2012, when the cashless policy was introduced.
He said this represents a 7, 000 percent increase.
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