Determined to ensure effective mop up of the old currency notes (N200, N500 and N1,000) as they cease to become legal tenders on Tuesday, January 31, 2023, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has moved large denominations of the new notes in liquid form to rural communities in Akwa Ibom State for open swapping.

Complaints have been rife in the hinterland in recent times as market women, petty traders and farmers groan over how to convert their old notes to the new ones without banks and Point Of Sale (POS) agents in the remote and largely agrarian communities.

Yesterday, the CBN sensitisation team led by the Uyo Branch Controller, Mrs Mercy Ogbomon - Paul Itohan, took the message to Nsit Ubium and other adjoining local government areas, after visiting Okobo and Oron, where hundreds of the local residents trooped out with their old cash and exchanged it for the new notes.

Addressing the traders at the Odobo market and the crayfish beach market at Okobo and Oron LGAs, Mrs Itohan, informed them of the January 31 deadline after which the old currencies would cease to serve as legal tenders, and charged them to "ensure you beat the time by taking the old notes to the banks."

At the palace of the Paramount Ruler of Nsit Ubium local government area, Ntenyin Solomon Etuk, the CBN officials, who dispensed the newly redesigned currency denominations for the old ones, charged the villagers to take the message deeper into the far-flung communities for easy evacuation of the old notes to the banks "to avoid losing your hard-earned incomes."