President Muhammadu Buhari’s Minister of State for Labour and the spokesperson for the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council (APC-PCC), Festus Keyamo, has said that the President’s directive on the naira swap policy was ill-advised by insisting on the ban of the N500 and N1000 notes despite an ex parte order by the Supreme Court.
Buhari, in a Thursday national broadcast on the controversial policy, ordered that the old N200 banknotes remain in circulation till April 10, while the old N500 and N1,000 bills no longer serve as legal tender.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) first set the policy in motion in October 2022, issuing a redesign of the three highest denominations of the naira, which was officially completed and unveiled in November 2022.
The initial deadline of January 31, 2023 was later extended to February 10, but with the governments of Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara approaching the Supreme Court, an interim order was given putting the policy’s implementation on hold.
The ensuing currency scarcity has led to protests across the country with several cases of ATMs destroyed, as well as banking facilities and property damaged.
On Channel’s Television programme
‘The 2023 Verdict’ on Friday, Keyamo said: “My view is that the President acted honestly without intention to slight the Supreme Court, but he may have acted on wrong advice.”
He added, “I did not give that advice; it is not my responsibility. I don’t know who gave that advice. I want to say this openly because tomorrow, people will ask me where I stood at this time….
“He thought he was playing safe by saying, ‘Before you decide this matter in court, may I just provide some middle ground, the country is burning, there are riots everywhere, so let me just try and provide some succour to the people, whilst acknowledging the matters are in court.’
“Now, if I were to advise him, I would have advised differently. I did not advise him. It’s not my responsibility; I don’t know who.”
Asked what his counsel to the President would have been, Keyamo said it would be for him to “comply strictly with the terms of the order of the Supreme Court, [which is that] all the old notes should circulate for now side by side with the new notes because that is the order of the Supreme Court.”
He added that by virtue of the constitution, “all authorities in Nigeria must obey the orders of the Supreme Court, adding that “anything to the contrary is a descent to anarchy.”
According to him, the day people begin to disobey the order of the Supreme Court is an invitation to “revolutionary intervention or other kinds of interventions” in the nation’s democracy.
He described the judiciary and the Supreme Court as the last bastion to defend Nigeria’s democracy.
“So, I will not sit down here as a member of the inner bar and desecrate the Supreme Court. I have heard all kinds of arguments….””