The Supreme Court Wednesday slated March 3, 2023 to deliver judgment in the suit brought before it by the governments of Kaduna, Kogi, Zamfara and 13 others.
In the suit, the states are challenging the naira redesign policy of the federal government.
At Wednesday’s proceedings, a seven-member panel of Justices of the apex court, presided by Justice John Inyang Okoro, insisted on hearing all the applications filed in the matter same day to avoid a situation where the judiciary would be made a scapegoat.
The panel went ahead to fix a date for judgment after all the parties adopted their various processes in the matter.
Currently, a total of sixteen states are now plaintiffs in the suit against the federal government.Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara state governments were the first set of states that challenged the naira redesign policy, but were latter joined by Katsina, Lagos, Cross River, Ogun, Ekiti, Ondo, Sokoto, Niger, Abia, Rivers, Nasarawa, Jigawa and Kano states.
In a consolidated amended originating summons, they prayed the apex court to void and set aside the policy on the ground that, it is inflicting hardships on innocent Nigerians.
The states accused President Muhammadu Buhari of usurping the function of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and asked that the directive issued by him be voided.
While adopting the briefs of Lagos state, the Attorney General of the state, Moyosore Onigbanjo ,SAN, drew the court’s attention to an application the state filed seeking an order of the court stopping the appearance of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami, SAN, in the matter until the president complies with the Supreme Court order to the effect that N200, N500 and N1000 notes be used together with the new naira notes.
Represented by A. A. Owonikoko, SAN, the Zamfara state government in an application, prayed the apex court to make an order setting aside the directive of the president in his February 16 broadcast, which limits the 15th February order of the court to only N200 notes.
AGF counters
Raising an objection, the AGF, represented by Chief Kanu Agabi, SAN submitted that the apex court lacked the jurisdiction to entertain the suit because the dispute that arose over the naira re-design was not between it and the sixteen states that can lead to invocation of the Supreme Court’s direct intervention.
He further pleaded with the court to void and set aside the contempt charges initiated against the AGF on the ground that such charges should be directed at the CBN, being the body responsible for the acts that led to the dispute, adding that even though the plaintiffs made reference to the apex bank 32 times in their processes, they did not deem it fit to join the bank as defendant in the matter.
He said the anger of the plaintiffs should have been directed at the CBN, a body responsible solely for the naira re-design.
The senior silk also informed the court that seven of the reliefs being sought are against CBN, adding that it would be a great injustice to make order against a party not before the court.
Agabi, while urging the court to dismiss the case of the plaintiffs, maintained that the plaintiffs were crying against the naira re-design at the wrong court and argued that the Supreme Court should direct the states to the Federal High Court.
He said Section 20 (2) of the CBN Act being attacked by the states can only be challenged at the Federal High Court and not the Supreme Court.
Old N500, N1000 notes subsist
Meanwhile, the order directing the CBN to allow the old N200, N500 and N1,000 co-exist with the new notes as legal tender subsists as the apex court did not reverse itself at the Wednesday’s sitting.
During the sitting, the Supreme Court also shut its door to more states seeking to be joined as interested parties in the suit.
Consolidating all the cases, it said the issue in dispute revolves around Section 20(3) of the CBN Act.
The panel, in a unanimous decision, asked all the states interested in the matter to await its decision in the suit.
This followed the panel’s rejection of a joinder application filed by Abia state.
“We will no longer join any state in this matter. When we give our decision, whoever that is dissatisfied can file a fresh suit. There is still time”, the apex court held.
Consolidated suits
All the suits the apex court consolidated for hearing were marked: SC/ CV/ 162/23, SC/CV/162/23, SC/CS/197/23, SC/CV/200/23, SC/CV/210, SC/CV/227, SC/CV/229/23 and SC/CV/222/23.
In the consolidated suits, the states specifically asked among others that a declaration that the Demonetization Policy of the Federation being currently carried out by the CBN under the directive of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is not in compliance with the extant provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), Central Bank of Nigeria Act, 2007 and actual laws on the subject.
They applied for: “A declaration that the three-month notice given by the Federal Government of Nigeria through the CBN under the directive of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the expiration of which will render the old banknotes inadmissible as legal tender, is in gross violation of the provisions of Section 20(3) of the Central Bank of Nigeria Act 2007 which specifies that Reasonable Notice must be given before such a policy.
“A declaration that given the express provisions of Section 20(3) of the Central Bank of Nigeria Act 2007, the Federal Government of Nigeria, through the CBN, has no powers to issue a timeline for the acceptance and redeeming of banknotes issued by the Bank, except as limited by Section 22(1) of the CBN Act 2007. The Central Bank shall at all times redeem its bank notes”
They also prayed the apex court to direct the immediate suspension of the demonetisation of the federal government the CBN under the directive of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria until it complied with the relevant provisionsthrough of the law.
The plaintiffs further brought to the attention of the apex court that since the CBN announced the new naira policy, there had been an acute shortage in the supply of the new naira notes in their respective states.
They lamented that residents in their states who complied with CBN’s directive and deposited their old naira notes were increasingly finding it difficult to access new naira notes to conduct their daily businesses.
They also said the inadequacy of the new naira notes as well as the haphazard manner the monetary policy was being implemented, had wrought serious hardship on residents in their states.
They told the apex court that the 10-day extension of the deadline would not be sufficient to address the challenges occasioned by the policy.
