JUST IN: Supreme Court Adjourns New Naira Notes’ Suit To Feb 22
BY EDMOND ODOK – The Supreme Court of Nigeria has adjourned to Wednesday, February 22, 2023, the hearing in the suit challenging the banning of old Naira notes for the consolidation of all cases on the matter emanating from nine more States seeking joinder in the case.
On Wednesday in Abuja, nine more states applied to join as parties in the suit initially filed by Governors Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State, Yahaya Bello of Kogi State, and Bello Matawalle of Zamfara State governments against the Federal Government seeking a restraining order to stop the full implementation of the Naira redesign policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The nine states, which filed to join the suit challenging the legality of the Federal Government’s Naira swap policy, are Katsina, Lagos, Cross River, Ogun, Ekiti, Ondo, and Sokoto states bringing the total number of plaintiffs to ten (10).
In a ruling on Wednesday, a seven-member panel, led by Justice John Okoro, the apex Court joined the attorneys-general of Katsina, Lagos, Ondo, Ogun, Ekiti, Cross River, and Sokoto States as co-plaintiffs, while the attorneys-general of Edo and Bayelsa States were joined as co-respondents.
Accordingly, the apex Court ordered the original plaintiffs and the respondents, the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), and the Minister of Justice to amend the processes already filed to reflect the new parties and be heard as one.
Meanwhile, pending the hearing, the old order to suspend the ban of the now older 200, 500, and 1000 Naira notes subsists while the court has fixed the hearing of the case for Wednesday, February 22, 2023
More to come…
