“By the middle of the year, we will start to produce the second generation of lower denomination notes, now in paper not in polymer,” says the Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Tunde Lemo, at the ongoing World Bank/International Monetary Fund (IMF) forum in Washington United States.
He continued, “My plea is that Nigerians should exercise patience with us; it wasn’t the fault of the CBN, it was just because we had to go back to the drawing board to rethink ‘Project Cure’ in the light of the wish of the public that we should not go ahead with the N5000 notes and lower denomination.”
“We will correct that in the course of the year. Polymer certainly will be phased out. In fact, we are phasing out polymer. No new note is being printed in polymer now.”
“So, part of ‘Project cure’ actually was actually to move away from polymer substrate to paper, unfortunately we had a push-back because of the issues around N5000 note and coins. The entire program was put in abeyance, otherwise by now we should have stopped producing polymer.”
