Some security experts have said the purpose of the Central Bank on the new naira notes redesign might have been defeated following a viral video showing a notorious bandit kingpin, Kachalla Baleri, and his gang members flaunting new naira notes allegedly from a N10m ransom received from relatives of abductees, according to some defence blogs.

This is as they added the possibility that some bankers might be conniving with the bandits. In the viral video, Baleri and his gang members, who spoke Hausa, could be seen displaying the new currency notes.

Speaking in Hausa, the bandit kingpin, who claimed to have used some of the new notes to buy ammunition, said only Allah knows the amount of the new naira notes he has stored in sacks.

Meanwhile, there have been no comments from the Department of State Security Service or the Defence Headquarters.

Reacting to the development, a security expert, Timothy Avele, who spoke on Thursday, said that the terrorists might have received the new naira notes from kidnapped victims’ relatives. This could partly defeat the purpose of redesigning the currency in the first place. He also said the truth is that, while the policy is generally good, there’s poor coordination and implementation. Many key stakeholders were not carried along, hence the hiccups being experienced in almost the whole country in getting the new naira to citizens.

Another security expert, Patrick Agambu, said that since the terrorists, as seen in the video, are now in possession of the new notes, it shows that they got them from some bankers with whom they’re dealing and might have swapped old notes with them for the new ones.

Kachalla was one of the 19 bandits/terrorists kingpins that were declared wanted by the Defence Headquarters in November 2022.

The military high command also placed a N5m bounty on each of them to encourage Nigerians to volunteer information that could lead to their arrest.