Nearly 38 years after he changed the nation’s currency as a military Head of State, President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday unveiled the re-designed Naira notes.
Persecondnews reports that the unveiling of N200, N500 and N1000 bank notes held at the Council Chambers of the Presidential Villa, Abuja, just before the virtual meeting of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) with some cabinet members in attendance.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele, had on Monday announced that President Buhari will today unveil the redesigned notes earlier scheduled for Dec. 15.
Buhari, a retired Army General, had in 1984 changed the Naira to punish the second republic politicians who had stashed millions of the country’s currency in their homes, septic tanks and farms.
The military administration had overthrown the civilian administration of President Shehu Shagari in a bloodless coup.
Buhari clamped Shagari, governors, ministers, commissioners in detention and announced the change of currencies while some of them were jailed for between 20 to 100 years for corrupt enrichment by the military tribunals across the country.
At a briefing after the ceremony before the FEC meeting, Emefiele had debunked insinuations that the early unveiling of new notes is a means to target any Nigerian.
He urged members of the public to disregard such insinuations.
He promised that the apex bank will intensify the monitoring process and interrogate the process of withdrawals, adding that there will be heavy restriction on the volume of cash that people can withdraw over the counter.
“The EFCC is also to monitor the purpose of any heavy transactions.”
Answering reporter’s question on the possibility of counterfeiting the new currencies, Emefiele said: “The redesigned currency notes can never be counterfeited. The CBN will redesign the notes every five or eight years.”
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