CBN, FG Under Scrutiny Over Silence On S/Court Ruling On Naira Redesign 

Four days after the ruling last week Friday, President Buhari and CBN are yet to respond to the Supreme Court ruling making the old naira notes legal tender.

 Government’s decision was to stop the old N500 and N1,000 notes being legal tender, which took effect from February 10.

Getting to almost a month after majority of the old notes were mopped out of circulation, the challenge of cash squeeze persists, as new notes have remained elusive.However, following widespread condemnation of the policy and its accompanying pains on Nigerians, President Buhari addressed Nigerians on February 16, directing that the old N200 be returned into circulation to alleviate the hardship faced by citizens.

But on Friday, a seven-member Supreme Court panel nullified the policy, faulting government’s handling of the process and declaring its methodology and implementation unconstitutional.

Neither the presidency, with its ever posture of ‘business as usual’ nor CBN, which has been battling with the ‘sit tight’ owner directors of banks, inflationary pressures and dwindling foreign reserves has gone to President Buhari to take ‘permission’ to obey the ruling.

The analysts say it is a matter of tragedy for CBN to have abandoned some of its core responsibilities as the naira ‘restriction’ is causing more harm to its stability and exchange rate against other foreign currencies.

They also berate the Attorney General and Minister of justice Abubakar Malami for not raising the objection to the case when the Governors that took the federal government to court didn’t join CBN, which was a deliberate ploy for their case to be heard by the Supreme Court.

Some legal experts however say, that since CBN was not joined in the case, there was no way it could obey except directed as such by the president.

They further argue that it is not impossible that Buhari may have been advised to delay or ignore Supreme Court ruling since CBN was not joined.

But their conclusion is that, whether ‘head or tail’ since the ruling was from the highest court of the land, continued delay would only heighten  impoverishment of the citizens.

However, the Socio Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has given a 7-day ultimatum to President Buhari to reveal his plans on obeying the Supreme Court decision on the validity of the old N200, N500 and N1,000 notes.

Speaking via a letter signed by the director of the Group, Kolawole Oluwadare, SERAP noted that the public was largely interested in the moves the presidency and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) were taking to obey the court order.

The organisation noted that disclosing the plans being made to obey the court orders would enable the citizenry to closely monitor and examine the level of compliance and subsequently improve accountability.

The letter reads, “There is an overriding public interest in disclosing the de­tails of the measures your government and the CBN are taking to effectively and satisfactorily obey the Supreme Court decision.

“Disclosing the measures that your government and the CBN are taking to implement the Supreme Court decision would also enable Nigerians to moni­tor and scrutinize the lev­el of compliance with the decision

“The public should not be kept in the dark on what your government and the CBN are doing to imple­ment the decision. Widely publishing the implemen­tation measures would also improve accountability of state officials and public confidence in the rule of law and Nigeria’s democracy.”

Speaking further, the group warned that if the information demanded is not made available within 7 days the group would take legal actions against the Federal Government.

The group lamented that they were worried about the consistent disobedience of the government against court orders.
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They insisted that disobedience has led to the violations of the citizens right.

“We would be grateful if the requested informa­tion and recommended measures are implement­ed within seven days of the receipt and/or publi­cation of this letter. If we have not heard from you by then, SERAP shall take all appropriate legal actions to compel your government to comply with our requests.

“The implementation by your government of the CBN policy on the redesign of the country’s currency has contributed to viola­tions of citizens’ rights.

“SERAP is concerned about the persistent disobe­dience of court orders by your government, and the apparent lack of respect for constitutional and in­ternational rule of law ob­ligations,” the organisation added.