The Supreme Court in Abuja adjourned a hearing in the lawsuit seeking to ban the usage of the old naira until Wednesday, February 22, 2023.
To prevent the full execution of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s naira redesign strategy, the three states filed a lawsuit against the federal government.
Nine states have applied to join the original lawsuit brought by Kogi, Kaduna, and Zamfara states, according to a recent development.
Adding these states brings the total number of plaintiffs to ten. The states are Katsina, Lagos, Cross River, Ogun, Ekiti, Ondo, and Sokoto.
However, Edo and Bayelsa have requested to be added as responses.
The seven-person panel, presided over by Justice John Okoro, commanded them to alter their procedures so that they might be heard together.
The prior order to defer the prohibition on the now-outdated 200, 500, and 1000 naira notes is still in effect while the case is ongoing.
According to reports, a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court’s seven-member panel on last Wednesday issued a temporary injunction preventing the Federal Government from carrying out the CBN’s deadline of February 10 for exchanging the old naira notes for new ones.
The decision was made in response to a request ex-parte filed on behalf of the three northern states of Kaduna, Kogi, and Zamfara, who had launched a lawsuit on February 3rd to stop the CBN’s policy from taking effect.
According to a report from February 8, 2022, the Federal High Court in Abuja barred President Muhammadu Buhari, the Central Bank of Nigeria, and commercial banks from interfering with, postponing, or extending the deadline of February 10 for the expiration of the old naira notes.
The Presidency was quoted as saying that neither the government nor the CBN had taken a position on the continued use of the old N200, N500, and N1,000 notes as legal tender given that the case was still pending before the Supreme Court before Wednesday’s hearing.
Garba Shehu, the Senior Special Assistant to the President for Media and Publicity, said the Federal Government would announce its stance on the new naira policy following the outcome of the suit on Wednesday.
In a response to our correspondent on Tuesday, he said “Following series of enquiries, we wish to state that it is not true that the FG or the CBN has taken a pre-emptive action on the legality of currency as a legal tender in view of the pendency of the case before the Supreme Court.
“We wish to state that it is not true that the Federal Government or the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN have taken a preemptive action on the legality of currency as a legal tender in view of the pendency of the case before the Supreme Court.
“The position of the government and the CBN will be made known upon the determination of the suit coming up tomorrow.”