Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mike Ozekhome, has said it is wrong for the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to disobey the Supreme Court order on the old naira notes.
The apex court had in an interim order restrained the Federal Government from suspending the acceptance of the old naira notes.
But in a statement on Friday, Ozekhome described the order by the President as a ‘dicta, more in the form of a military Decree’.
The statement partly read, “Buhari, in his broadcast on Thursday, February 16, 2023, unilaterally varied the apex court’s extant order of maintenance of status quo, by directing the CBN Governor to the effect that ‘the old N200 banknotes be released back into circulation…to circulate as legal tender with the new N200, N500 and N1000 bank notes for 60 days…’
The President then issued a dicta, more in the form of a military Decree, that, ‘in line with section 20 (3) of the CBN Act, 2007, all existing old N1000 and N500 notes remain redeemable at the CBN and designated prints’.
“This order is a clear violation of and disobedience to the existing order of the apex court which had already maintained the status quo ante bellum of all parties involved in the Naira re-design dispute.
“The Supreme Court had on Wednesday, February 15, 2023, after the first interim order, adjourned the suit originally filed by the Attorneys-General of Kano, Kogi and Zamfara states (other interested parties were later joined) to February 22, to enable it hear the entire matter holistically.”
