Naira Swap: Uncertainty, Confusion Reign As Hardship Continues 

Uncertainty, confusion have continued to trail the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s naira redesign policy with the citizens getting more confused with regards to the state of affairs.

More worrisome is the fact that the legal rigmarol and issuance of contradictory and inciting statements from both the state and non state actors have not improved the precarious condition of the impoverished citizens, who are still keeping vigils at banks and Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) waiting for their funds locked up in the Vaults of banks.

As it is now, most of the banks have closed their branches in Lagos and some towns, while the mobile applications that could have helped the situation have stopped working, making even transfer of funds, where, acceptable, now difficult.

“This service is currently not available, please try later… or in 30 minutes time,” responses from the GTBank USSD 373 code for the past two days.

In deed, while the new notes are not available, some Nigerians have started rejecting the old notes, hinging it on lack of clarity from government on the way forward.

“We have two judgements now, although the latest is from the highest court in the land. But with news making rounds that Abubakar Malami, the Minister of justice has asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the Judgement, what next and when will the court consider the case and has cash been made available now,? qerries, a concerned citizen.

To another stakeholder, “In the last 24 hours or so, CBN Governor has met Buhari, two times, the same president told us to expect decisive action within the 10 days, and with less than 24 hours to the expiration of the ten days, can anything good come out from all these motion without movement.? At least somebody has to be alive before exercising his civic responsibilities.”

In fact, it is public knowledge that on Wednesday the Supreme Court overruled an earlier injunction granted by a high court in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) restraining the Federal Government and the CBN from undermining the February 10 deadline for the ongoing currency swap.

While the Supreme Court ruling appeared to have doused the tension scarcity of cash had induced in the polity, the Federal Government, last night, approached the Supreme Court, asking it to dismiss a suit challenging the February 10 deadline set by CBN to end the legal tender status of the old currency notes of N200, N500 and N1,000.

Nigerians are eagerly waiting for court’s pronouncement on Malami’s request to the bank to dismiss the earlier suit.

It argued that the Supreme Court lacks jurisdiction to hear the suit, which was filed by three states – Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara – all in the northern part of the country and controlled by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

The respondent maintained that the case is not a dispute between the federation and the state governments, but merely an issue about CBN’s policy. It said the suit is, therefore, not qualified to be taken directly to the Supreme Court for adjudication, arguing that the suit ought to have commenced at the Federal High Court.

Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), sued as the sole defendant, as the representative of the Federal Government, filed his opposition to the suit as a preliminary objection against it at the Supreme Court on Wednesday night.

The three state governments, in their application filed to challenge the naira redesign policy, prayed for an order restraining CBN from ending the use of the old notes on February 10. They cited the sufferings scarcity of the new notes had brought upon many Nigerians.

After listening to the applicants’ lawyer yesterday, a seven-member panel of the court, led by John Okoro, issued an order of interim injunction halting the plan by CBN to end the use of the old banknotes as scheduled. The court then adjourned the hearing of the main case until February 15.

Shortly after, President Muhammmadu Buhari met with the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele and AGF, Malami, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. Outcome of the meeting was yet to be known as at press time, apart from the AGF asking the apex court to dismiss the governors’ suit.

However, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), yesterday, called for the extension of the February 10 deadline for cash swap. The IMF, in a statement by its Resident Representative to Nigeria, Ari Aisen, issued on his behalf by Office Manager for Resident Representation for Nigeria, Laraba Bonnet, in Abuja, hinged its plea on the hardship Nigerians were going through.

It said: “In light of hardships caused by disruptions to trade and payments due to the shortage of new bank notes available to the public, in spite of measures introduced by CBN to mitigate the challenges in the banknote swap process, IMF encourages CBN to consider extending the deadline should problems persist in the next few days, leading up to the February 10 deadline.”

IMF is the first international financial organisation to openly call for extension of the deadline for the deposit of old Naira notes.
Governor el-Rufai has urged Nigerians to continue spending the old denominations of the redesigned notes. El-Rufai said Nigerians should disregard the CBN directives because the APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, would reverse the decision if elected on February 25.

Speaking in Kaduna, the governor said: “Continue running your businesses and daily activities with whatever notes (old or new) you have. Don’t rush yourself into taking old naira notes to the bank, and wasting your time in the unnecessary queues at the bank. Nobody can stop you (people) from using the notes. When we come to power, if Tinubu becomes the president, we’ll give people more time to get rid of the old naira notes.”

But more commercial banks have shut their doors to customers, halting cash operations as safety concerns take priority in management decisions.
Findings suggest that most bank managers have been strongly advised to avoid putting the lives of their employees at risk until there is “reasonable assurance of safety”.

Consequently, most automated teller machines (ATMs) in Lagos have been disabled, pushing more people to point of sale (PoS) terminals, most of whom have run out of cash, with few surviving ones charging between 30 to 35 percent surcharge.

ALSO READ:FG: Why Supreme Court Should Strike out Suit against Naira Redesign

MetroBusinessNews (MBN) further  investigation suggests that larger proportion of cash released so far has gone into the hands of few individuals for their personal and selfish interests.

It was also learnt that much of the cash has been purchased also by politicians with financial war chest and even some who are owners or directors on the boards of some banks may have capitalized on the present confusion to their advantage.

However, most Nigerians are favourably disposed to the naira redesign, but faulting the implementation, which they attribute to conflicting financial and political interests.