Supreme Court suspends CBN’s Feb10 deadline on old naira notes
By Aremu Sosanya
The Supreme Court, Wednesday, restrained the Federal Government from enforcing the February 10 deadline for the use of N200, N500 and N1000 old Naira notes.
The apex court, in a unanimous decision by a seven-member panel, halted the full implementation of the demonetisation policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.
The ruling followed a suit that was filed by three Northern States; Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara.
The Supreme Court issued an interim injunction restraining the Federal Government from suspending the acceptance of the old Naira notes on the Friday February 10, 2023 deadline.
Kaduna, Zamfara, and Kogi State have dragged the Federal Government to Supreme Court over the scarcity of old and new Naira notes due to the (CBN) naira redesign policy.
The state governments said they are worried by the effects the CBN naira redesign policy is having on the residents of their states.
Consequently, they are seeking a restraining order by the Supreme Court to compel the government and CBN from implementing the 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.
“Unless this Honourable Court intervenes, the Government and people of Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara State will continue to go through a lot of hardship and would ultimately suffer great loss as a result of the insufficient and unreasonable time within which the Federal Government is embarking on the ongoing currency redesign policy,” Mustapha said.
The states said there has been a shortage in the supply of the new naira notes in Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara States and that citizens who have dutifully deposited their old naira notes have increasingly found it difficult and sometimes next to impossible to access new naira notes to go about their daily activities.
The states said the CBN policy is imposing a lot of hardship on Nigerians and insisted that the ten-day extension by the Federal Government is still insufficient to address the challenges of Nigerians swapping their old Naira notes for new ones.
The case has been adjourned to Wednesday, February 15, 2023.
