FG Says It Would Obey Supreme Court Ruling Suspending CBN’s February 10 Deadline For Naira Swap

The Supreme Court postponed the deadline for exchanging old naira notes for new ones, and the Nigerian government indicated it would abide by this decision.

Abubakar Malami, the Attorney General of the Federation, declared that the government would abide by the Supreme Court’s decision.

In an interview with Arise TV, Malami stated that the government was hoping that the ex parte decision, which is set to expire on February 15, 2023, would be overturned

“An interim order was granted by the Supreme Court and that order was to lapse on Wednesday (February 15) and incidentally, that was the day the court fixed for hearing of the motion,” Malami said.

“With the position in mind, we have taken steps to file our objection challenging the jurisdiction of the court to entertain the matter. Jurisdiction on the ground that when you talk of monetary policy, Central Bank is an indispensable and necessary party in the matter.”

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had stated that old N200, N500, and N1000 notes must cease use as legal money by Friday, February 10, and be replaced with newly designed notes.

But on Monday, the state governments of Kaduna, Zamfara, and Kogi filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court against the federal government for the lack of old and new Currency notes as a result of the CBN’s naira redesign strategy.

The states are asking the Supreme Court to grant them an interim injunction preventing the Federal Government from carrying out its plan to end the timeframe within which the now-outdated 200, 500, and 1000 Naira denominations may no longer be legal tender on February 10, 2023. The states filed an ex-parte motion through their attorney, AbdulHakeem Uthman Mustapha (SAN), and are asking the court to grant them a preliminary injunction.

The state governments expressed concern about the impact the CBN’s naira redesign program is having on their citizens.

In order to prevent the government and CBN from enacting the policy, they requested the Supreme Court to obtain a restraining order.

The Supreme Court issued a suspension of the deadline on Wednesday.