10 February 2023
The Nigerian government said it will comply with the Supreme Court suspension of the deadline to swap old naira notes for new ones.
Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, said the government will obey the Supreme Court ruling.
Report says Malami said the government was hopeful that the ex parte ruling which expires on Wednesday, February 15, 2023, would be upturned.
“An interim order was granted by the Supreme Court and that order was to lapse on Wednesday (February 15) and incidentally, that was the day the court fixed for hearing of the motion,” Malami said.
“With the position in mind, we have taken steps to file our objection challenging the jurisdiction of the court to entertain the matter. Jurisdiction on the ground that when you talk of monetary policy, Central Bank is an indispensable and necessary party in the matter.”
The Central Bank of Nigeria CBN) had insisted that Friday, February 10 will be the deadline for old N200, N500, N1000 notes to be used as legal tenders – and be replaced by redesigned notes.
It will be recalled that Kaduna, Zamfara, and Kogi State governments on Monday instituted a suit against the Federal Government at the Supreme Court over the scarcity of old and new Naira notes due to the CBN naira redesign policy.
The states filed an ex-parte motion through their lawyer, AbdulHakeem Uthman Mustapha (SAN), and are urging the Supreme Court to grant them an interim injunction stopping the Federal Government either by itself or acting through the CBN, the commercial banks or its agents from carrying out its plan of ending the timeframe within which the now older versions of the 200, 500 and 1000 denominations of the Naira may no longer be legal tender on February 10, 2023.
The state governments said they are worried about the effects the CBN naira redesign policy is having on the residents of their states.
They urged the Supreme Court to issue a restraining order to compel the government and CBN from implementing the policy which led to the suspension of the deadline as ordered by Supreme Court on Wednesday
Guardian
