The Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered a temporal suspension of the February 10 deadline for the swap of old naira notes with new ones given by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Recall that CBN’s naira swap deadline had moved from January 31 to February 10 after the CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele met with the President, Muhammadu Buhari.
Notwithstanding, Nigerians began groaning due to the pain caused by the deadline as they are unable to get the new notes, while the old notes are being sold to them by Point of Sales vendors
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Meanwhile, below are four things to know about the Supreme Court ruling:
1. Some APC governors initiated the suit
El-Rufai and two other APC governors —Yahaya Bello of Kogi State and Bello Matawalle of Zamfara State — dragged the CBN and the Federal Government to the Supreme Court, seeking a halt to the full implementation of the naira redesign policy initiated by the apex bank.
2. It is a temporary halt, a suspension.
The Supreme Court ruling on Wednesday temporarily halted the move by the Federal Government through the CBN to ban the use of the old naira notes from February 10, 2023.
3. It is noteworthy that the ruling is an “interim injunction” — not a complete stop to the naira redesign policy — pending the hearing and determination of the case filed by the APC governors.
4. February 15 hearing
It is not certain yet what will happen after the hearing of the case on February 15.
Justice Okoro of the Supreme Court had said:
“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 February 10, 2023, the time frame with which the now older version of the 200, 500 and 1,000 denomination of the naira may no longer be legal tender pending the hearing and determination of their motion on notice for an interlocutory injunction.”
