•••AS COMMERCIAL BANKS REJECT OLD NAIRA NOTES
The meeting between President Muhammadu Buhari and the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Godwin Emefiele at the Presidential Villa Abuja, on Monday, ended this afternoon with the CBN governor refusing to talk journalists after the meeting.
Emefiele had a closed door meeting with President Buhari over what was suspected to be the burning issue of cash scarcity in the country.
The ongoing implementation of the Naira redesign policy has affected the lives of Nigerians and their businesses.
After the crucial meeting, the CBN Governor, did not speak to journalists after the meeting as he hurriedly left the Presidential.
This was the third time this month, the CBN governor would be meeting the President on the troubled new naira redesign policy.
Recall that since February 10, Nigerians have been hit by Naira scarcity due to the swap of the currency.
FG had approved the redesigned N200, N500, and N1000 notes, by the CBN, which commenced in December 2022.
Meanwhile, the tales of woes among the masses continued in Abuja as commercial banks rejected the old Naira notes from customers.
A good number of customers who took the money to banks in Abuja were confused as the banks refused to collect the money from them.
An official of a new generation bank who spoke to the Network said that they were under strict instructions to reject the only notes.
Also, the banks visited by this correspondent were not paying the new notes in spite of the huge crowd gathered outside the bank premises.
On February 8, the Supreme Court in a ruling halted the move by the Federal Government to ban the circulation of the old Naira notes by February 10, 2023.
Justice John Okoro led a seven-man team of justices to temporarily stop the government’s deadline while ruling in an exparte application brought by three northern governments of Kaduna, Kogi, and Zamfara states.
The three northern states had prayed the Supreme Court to grant them an interim injunction stopping the Federal Government either by itself or acting through the CBN, the commercial banks or its agents from carrying out its plan of ending the timeframe within which the now older versions of the 200, 500 and 1000 denominations of the Naira may no longer be legal tender on Feb. 10, in a motion ex-parte filed on their behalf by their lawyer, AbdulHakeem Uthman Mustapha (SAN).
Thee Attorneys-General and Commissioners of Justice of the three states are the plaintiffs while the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), is the sole Respondent
Justice Okoro, who ruled on the motio exparte granted the application as prayed.
“An order of Interim Injunction restraining the federal government through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) or the commercial banks from suspending or determining or ending on Feb. 10,, the time frame with which the now older version of the 200, 500 and 1,000 denomination of the naira may no longer be legal tender pending the hearing and determination of their motion on notice for interlocutory injunction,” he ruled.
The judge adjourned until February 15, 2023, for hearing of the main suit.
