The Deputy Governor of the CBN, Dr. Tunde Lemo, discloses this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Washington, USA, at the on-going Spring Meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
He said, "By the middle of this year, we will start to produce he second generation of lower denomination notes, now in paper and not in polymer."
"My plea is that Nigerians should exercise patience; it wasn't the fault of the CBN; it was just because we had to go back to the drawing board to rethink the 'Project Cure' in the light of the wish of the public that we should not go ahead with the N5,000 notes and lower denominations.
"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."
Lemo further told NAN that when the CBN was going to introduce the polymer notes, its search showed that they could last longer than ordinary paper notes.
He said, "However, with the benefit of hindsight, we probably should not have dumped the polymer because, yes, the substrate lasts longer, but the in-consubstrate began to fade; we didn't realize that at the time of introduction.
"So part of 'Project Cure' was actually to move away from polymer substance to paper; unfortunately, we had a push-back because of the issues around N5,000 note and coins.
"The entire programme was put in abeyance; otherwise by now, we would have stopped producing polymer."
Lemo said the CBN had awarded the contract for the printing of the higher denomination notes to a foreign company because of low capacity at the Nigerian Printing and Minting Company.
He said the bank would begin to receive the fresh notes from June.
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