10 days ago, the Supreme Court allowed the use of the old N1000 and N500 until December 31. The CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, has been silent on the issue since then. Finally, on Monday, he officially ordered commercial banks to comply with the court’s order.
Also, he announced that the old notes are legal tender until December 31. Emefiele said that this decision was reached after he met with the Bankers Committee on Sunday.
Following Emefiele’s announcement, the confusion over the naira notes has ended. Thus, we expect that this decision will ease the sufferings of Nigerians. Moreover, the controversy over the use of old notes had caused confusion in some banks.
This information was passed along in a statement by The Acting Director, Corporate Communications, Isa AbdulMumin. The statement was titled “Old N200, N500, and N1,000 banknotes remain legal tender”—CBN.So, money-deposit banks are expected to comply with the court’s directives. Emefiele has finally bowed to pressure from all sides.
On Monday, the Nigerian Bar Association and the Nigeria Labour Congress spoke out. They blamed the federal government and CBN for disobeying the Supreme Court’s order. The NBA also spoke on how the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, and the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, boldly disobeyed the court’s order.
Even state governments threatened to file contempt charges against them. The charges were to be filed today (Tuesday) had they not spoken up. The NBA also observed that the cash swap program increased people’s hardships.
Seven-day ultimatum
The leadership of the NLC has issued an ultimatum to the federal government. The ultimatum is to end the cash shortage in Nigeria. The president of the NLC, Joe Ajaero, issued the ultimatum on Monday in Abuja. This was at the opening session of the Central Working Committee meeting of the labour union.
Ajaero was angry at the sufferings Nigerians were subjected to because of the cash swap policy. He warned that at the end of the seven days, if the government had not taken any action, workers would stay at home. The government needs to take action on this fuel and cash scarcity issue.
The president has exempted himself by saying he didn’t order the AGF and the CBN governor to disobey the court. The Senior Special Assistant to the President (Media and Publicity), Garba Shehu, released a statement to this effect. The statement was titled, “President Buhari never told AG and CBN Gov to defy Supreme Court order.” In addition, the statement says that President Buhari would never interfere with or obstruct justice.