The Supreme Court Wednesday ordered the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) not to end the use of old naira notes on 10 February.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that a seven-member panel of the court, led by John Okoro, gave the order of interim injunction amid acute scarcity of newly redesigned N200, N500, and N1,000 currency notes.
The court gave the order temporarily, cancelling the CBN’s 10 February deadline to end the validity of the old versions of the banknotes based on an ex parte application filed by three northern states being controlled by the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The three applicant states are – Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara.
The governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai, has been one of the most vocal critics of the naira redesign policy.
The presidential candidate of the APC, Bola Tinubu, had also publicly criticised the policy during a campaign stop. Their stance contradicts that of President Muhammadu Buhari, the leader of their party, who had repeatedly defended the policy.
The applicants, on 3 February, filed their application at the Supreme Court praying for an order to restrain the CBN from ending the use of the old currency notes on 10 February as threatened by the bank.
They cited the sufferings the scarcity of the new bank notes had brought upon many Nigerians.
The application, being ex parte, was not served on the Attorney General of the Federation who is sued in the case as the representative of the federal government.
Only the applicants’ lawyer, Abdulrakeem Mustapha, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), was heard by the court.
Mr Okoro, after listening to the applicants’ lawyer Wednesday morning, granted the application “as prayed, a decision he said his panel took after “a careful consideration”.
He issued an order of interim injunction “restraining the federal government through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) or the commercial banks from suspending or determining or ending on 10 February, the time frame with which the now older version of the 200, 500 and 1,000 denominations of the naira may no longer be legal tender pending the hearing and determination of their motion on notice for interlocutory injunction”.
The court, after issuing the order, adjourned until 15 February for hearing of the main suit.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) last October announced that it was redesigning the N200, N500 and N1,000 banknotes.
Godwin Emefiele, the CBN governor, announced 31 January as the deadline for the expiration of the old banknotes.
Despite the deadline extension, however, the scarcity of new notes has persisted.
(Premium Times)
