Supreme Court on Friday faulted the naira redesign policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and ordered the Federal Government to ensure extension of the validity of old naira notes of N1,000, N500 and N200 till December 31, 2023.
Justice Emmanuel Agim, who read the lead judgment of the apex court,
declared the naira notes swap implementation invalid, describing the decision as an affront to the 1999 Constitution.
The court also dismissed the preliminary objections by the defendants (the Attorney General of the Federation, Bayelsa and Edo states) on the issue raised over the jurisdiction to entertain the suit.
Citing Section 23(2)1 of the constitution, the court held that the dispute between the FederaL Government and states must involve law or facts.
The apex court further held that President Muhammadu Buhari in his broadcast admitted that the policy is flawed with a lot of challenges.
The court says the policy has led to some people engaging in trade by barter in this modern age in a bid to survive.
The court added that the President’s disobedience of the February 8 order, is a sign of dictatorship.
The Supreme Court judgment comes three weeks after President Muhammadu Buhari declared that old 500 and 1000 naira notes have ceased to be legal tenders in Nigeria.
Buhari, however, ordered the CBN to allow the old 200 naira notes and redesigned 200, 500 and 1000 naira notes to coexist.
The president said only the 200 old naira notes will continue to be legal tender till Monday, April 10.
CBN earlier announced that all naira notes will cease to be legal tender from Friday, February 10, 2023.
Kogi, Kaduna, and Zamfara state governments later sued the Federal Government at the Supreme Court and called for a nullification of the CBN deadline before more than 10 other states including Ogun, Lagos and Ekiti joined the suit.
The state governments said they are worried about the effects the CBN naira redesign policy is having on the residents of their states.
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.
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