Supreme Court Judgement on Cashless Policy -By Favour Tisan Aluwong

The Supreme Court made up of a Seven-Member Panel on the 3rd of March, 2023, gave judgement on the usage of the new re-designed naira notes and on the ban of the old naira notes as they nullified the Federal Government’s naira redesign policy. The Supreme Court passed a dateline for the usage of the new naira notes alongside the old naira notes to be on the 31st of December, 2023.

As we are aware, the court made the declaration while delivering judgment in a suit filed by three states of the federation. The Supreme Court ruled that although President Muhammadu Buhari had the authority to act as the federation’s executive, he was still required to give the federating units adequate notice before implementing the new monetary policy through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). The court said that before the old naira notes were withdrawn, the states had not received reasonable notice as required by section 20(3) of the CBN Act.

As a result, the Supreme Court ruled in its lead decision, which was written by Justice Emmanuel Agim, that Buhari’s authorisation for the CBN to withdraw the old banknotes was illegal. The court had earlier on February 8 restrained the Federal Government from implementing the February 10 deadline for swapping the old naira notes with new ones. The injunction was a sequel to a suit filed by Zamfara, Kogi and Kaduna state governments against the implementation of the naira redesign policy. These former state governors had dragged the Federal Government before the Supreme Court to halt the full implementation of the naira redesign policy that the CBN introduced.
Former Governors, Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna State, Yahaya Bello of Kogi State, and Bello Matawalle of Zamfara State, who filed the suit, expressed concern about the impact of the CBN policy on citizens of their states. Other states like Ekiti, Ondo and Kano applied to join the suit.

Now it’s been 8 months since the Supreme Court nullification of the Federal Government’s naira redesign policy and just 6 weeks to the dateline of the Court’s judgement. What is the Federal Government of the President Bola Tinubu’s administration doing towards easing the lives of it’s citizens? Are they going to produce more of the new naira notes or what are they planning?

What’s next for the Nigeria Citizen’s? We need to hear from the President’s Office on this arising matter in the country as the Naira is in danger if the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and other Multilateral Organizations have the slightest reason to believe that the issuing, management, and circulation of the Naira are driven by political considerations.

“Such a situation will invariably increase Nigeria’s sovereign risk which will negatively affect the exchange rate of the Naira vis a vis other international currencies, as we have already witness it in this past month on the drastic inflation of Naira to other currencies.”

Favour Tisan Aluwong, Department of Mass Communication, University of Maiduguri….