The hearing in the suit banning the use of the old naira notes has been adjourned by the Supreme Court sitting in Abuja to Wednesday, 22nd February 2023.
Three states, Kogi, Kaduna and Zamfara earlier filed a suit against the Federal Government seeking a restraining order to stop the full implementation of the naira redesign policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Currently, seven other states, Katsina, Lagos, Cross River, Ogun, Ekiti, Ondo and Sokoto have filed to join the suit that was filed initially by the three states.
This brings the new total of plaintiffs to ten.
Meanwhile, two states, Edo and Bayelsa have filed to be joined as respondents as seven-man panel led by Justice John Okoro ordered them to amend their processes to be heard as one.
However, pending the hearing, the old order to suspend the ban of the now older 200, 500 and 1000 naira notes subsist.
So far, sources have disclosed that a seven-man panel of the Supreme Court last Wednesday in a unanimous ruling granted an interim injunction restraining the Federal Government from implementing the CBN’s February 10 deadline for the swapping of the old naira notes with the new ones.
The judgement came after a motion ex-parte on behalf of three northern states Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara, who on February 3rd filed a suit seeking to halt the implementation of the CBN’s policy.
Interestingly, the Federal High Court in Abuja, on February 8, 2022, stopped the President Muhammadu Buhari, the CBN and commercial banks from interfering, suspending or extending the terminal date of February 10 for the expiration of the old naira notes.
The position of the Presidency at the emd of the day was that, neither the government nor the CBN had taken a stand on the continued use of the old N200, N500 and N1,000 notes as legal tenders, despite the fact that the case was still pending before the Supreme Court.
