The Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele, has after a long silence spoken out, insisting that the February 10 deadline for the withdrawal of the old naira notes stands.

Emefiele broke the long silence while briefing the diplomatic community at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Abuja on Tuesday.

“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,” he said.

This is coming despite the Supreme Court order which extended the deadline to February 15, pending the hearing by the court.

Despite the order, commercial banks have continued to reject the old notes at their branches.

Speaking further, Emefiele said: “Some of our leaders are buying the new notes and storing them for whatever purpose and I will not expand further on that.”

He further said that the apex bank acknowledges the suffering of Nigerians, noting that effective implementation of the policy could scrap 4% of the inflation numbers.

He further explained that the optimal volume of cash in circulation should be around N700 billion.

He said: “Even if we say N1trillion should be in circulation, we cannot refloat N3.7trillion into circulation.”