Beyond the threat of boycotting the 2023 general elections if the Federal Government or the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) extends the deadline for currency swap to redesigned notes, some political parties, on Monday, secured an order of a court sitting in Abuja restraining the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Federal Government, 27 listed commercial banks from “suspending, stopping, extending or interfering with the currency re-designation terminal date of February 10 or issuing any directive contrary to the date.”
But Nigerians wait with bated breath to see the direction President Muhammadu Buhari will swing, or the Supreme Court will go, if it sits to determine a counter ex-parte motion filed by the Kogi, Kaduna, and Zamfara State governments seeking to stop the CBN from respecting its own deadline.
Last Friday, President Buhari told some visiting governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC): “I will revert to the CBN and the Minting Company. There will be a decision one way or the other in the remaining seven days of the 10-day extension.”
Recall that 13 of the 18 parties told newsmen on Monday they would boycott the elections if the CBN extended the deadline; but on Monday, five of them went a step further to get the court order.
They alleged in their motion that politicians who were in possession of illicit funds were the ones opposing the Naira redesigning policy aimed at curbing vote buying.
Justice Eleojo Enenche ordered: “An order of interim injunction is hereby made restraining the defendants whether by themselves, staff agents, officers, interfacing banks or whosoever not to suspend, stop, extend, vary or interfere with the extant termination date of use of the old N200, N500, and N1000 bank note being 10th day of February, 2023, pending the hearing and determination of motion on notice.”
The court also restrained President Muhammadu Buhari and the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, from doing same.
The judgment followed a motion ex parte filed by five of the 18 political parties.
The court alsi ordered CEOs of the 27 listed banks and their alter egos to show cause why they should not be arrested and prosecuted for the economic and financial sabotage of the country by their hoarding, withholding, not paying or disbursing the new N200, N500 and N1000 bank notes despite supply of such notes by the CBN.
According to the order CEOs and their staff who have been alleged to be hoarding the new bank notes or trading with them, causing untold hardship to ordinary citizens, will be severely sanctioned.
The CBN had set 31st January as the deadline for the exchange of old naira notes with the redesigned ones.
Following a loud public outcry that occasioned the scarcity of the naira, the apex bank had extended the deadline till February 10.