Jonathan suspends Sanusi's N5000 super currency

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President Goodluck Jonathan has directed the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to suspend the proposed introduction of the N5,000 notes, echoing former President Umaru Yar’Adua’s suspension of the planned re-decimalization of Nigeria’s currency by the Professor Charles Soludo’s administration.

Dr Reuben Abati, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, confirmed the suspension of the super currency to State House correspondents on Thursday night in Abuja.

“The introduction is being suspended for now to enable the CBN do more enlightenment on the issue.

“Yes, President Jonathan has directed that the implementation of the new N5,000 note be suspended for now.

“This is to enable the apex bank to do more in terms of enabling Nigerians to understand why it proposed it in the first place.

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“So, for now, the full implementation is on hold,” he said.

Despite public disapproval, the CBN recently announced that it would introduce the note, and coins to replace the current N5, N10 and N20 notes.

The policy was purportedly endorsed by the National Economic Management Team, an advisory body coordinated by the Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

But the Senate and the House of Representatives have passed separate motions calling for the suspension of the introduction of the note. Various professional groups such as the ICAN and the NBA have also condemned the planned introduction of the bigger currency on grounds that it would be inflationary and contradicted the CBN’s campaign to make Nigeria’s economic transactions more cashless. Indeed the NBA, in its latest intervention called for the sacking of the CBN governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.

The super currency was said to have been designed with the portraits of three of Nigeria’s prominent civil rights activists in history.

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