The daily trauma Nigerians experience to get new Naira notes in the past few days may now subside as there is no longer any haste to get the newly redesigned Naira notes again.
The Supreme Court has restrained the Federal Government from enforcing the February 10 deadline set for the phasing out of the old Naira notes.
The Central Bank of Nigeria had set a deadline for February 10 for Nigerians to deposit all their old Naira notes for the redesigned naira notes to circulate around the country.
But the court today gave an order temporarily cancelling the CBN’s February 10 deadline to end the validity of the old versions of the banknotes.
The Supreme Court gave the order in a suit filed by three APC-controlled states - Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that a seven-member panel of the court, led by John Okoro, gave the order of interim injunction based on an ex parte application filed by three northern states under the control of the All Progressives Congress (APC) amid acute scarcity of the newly redesigned N200, N500, and N1,000 currency notes.
The governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai, has been one of the most vocal critics of the naira redesign policy.
The presidential candidate of the APC, Bola Tinubu, had also publicly criticised the policy during a campaign stop.
Their stance contradicts that of President Muhammadu Buhari, the leader of their party, who had repeatedly defended the policy.
The applicants, on 3 February, filed their application at the Supreme Court praying for an order to restrain the CBN from ending the use of the old currency notes on 10 February as threatened by the bank.
They cited the sufferings the scarcity of the new bank notes had brought upon many Nigerians.
The application, being ex parte, was not served on the Attorney General of the Federation who is sued in the case as the representative of the federal government.
Only the applicants’ lawyer, Abdulrakeem Mustapha, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), was heard by the court.
Mr Okoro, after listening to the applicants’ lawyer Wednesday morning, granted the application “as prayed, a decision he said his panel took after “a careful consideration”.
He issued an order of interim injunction “restraining the Federal Government through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) or the commercial banks from suspending or determining or ending on Feb 10, the time frame with which the now older version of the 200, 500 and 1,000 denominations of the naira may no longer be legal tender pending the hearing and determination of their motion on notice for interlocutory injunction”.
The court, after issuing the order, adjourned until 15 February for hearing of the main suit.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) last October announced that it was redesigning the N200, N500 and N1,000 banknotes.
Godwin Emefiele, the CBN governor, announced 31 January as the deadline for the expiration of the old banknotes.
But due to the public outcry trailing the currency scarcity, Mr Emefiele extended the deadline till 10 February. He added that money deposit banks would continue to receive the old banknotes even after the deadline.
Despite the deadline extension however, the scarcity of new notes persisted.
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