The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has warned that Point of Sale (PoS) agents who charge above N200 for cash swap transactions will be arrested and jailed.
The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele issued the warning during a visit on Tuesday to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to discuss the monetary and currency redesign policy of the apex bank.
He explained that the PoS operators could approach the CBN to be compensated for any extra cost incurred in getting the new notes, rather than charging their customers higher fees.
Emefiele also said that there was no need to shift the February 10, 2023 deadline given for the Naira swap to end.
According to him: “The situation is substantially calming down since the commencement of over-the-counter payments to complement ATM disbursements and the use of super-agents.
“There is, therefore, no need to consider any shift from the deadline of February 10.”
This comes as the Supreme Court earlier restrained the Federal Government from implementing the February 10 deadline for the currency swap.
A seven-man panel of the apex court led by Justice John Okoro, in a unanimous ruling, granted an interim injunction restraining the Federal Government from implementing the Friday terminal date for the old naira notes.
In that suit filed by four northern state governors, CBN and the commercial banks were not joined as respondents to the suit, fuelling speculation that the governors were on a mere political hype, rather than chasing substance.
The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice (AGF), Abubakar Malami, has already filed a motion seeking to quash the interlocutory injunction and also to quash the entire case as an abuse of court process, being that the apex court lacked the locus standi to hear the case as proper parties were not joined by the plaintiffs and that it was a mere CBN policy, rather than a dispute between the Federal Government and State Government as claimed by the plaintiffs.
