The February 10 deadline for the currency swap announced by the Central Bank of Nigeria has pitted Governors Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna, Yahaya Bello (Kogi) and Bello Matawalle (Zamfara) against 14 political parties which threatened to boycott the February 25 election, should the CBN extend the time limit.

This is as a High Court of the Federal Capital Territory has restrained the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), CBN, its Governor Godwin Emefiele and 27 commercial banks from suspending, stopping, extending or interfering with the currency swap terminal date.

The order was handed down on Monday by Justice E. Enenche following an application by four political parties.

That said, the three governors, who dragged the CBN and the Federal Government to the Supreme Court, were seeking a halt to the full implementation of the naira redesign policy initiated by the apex bank.


No date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit which is coming four days after the governors elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress met with the President where they complained about the hardship occasioned by the currency policy.

Buhari had asked them to give him seven days to address their complaints, but apparently unimpressed by the President’s pledge, the governors on Monday headed for the Supreme Court to stop the policy.

The applicants in the suit were the Attorneys-General and Commissioners of Justice of Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara, while the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN, was the sole respondent in the matter.

At a briefing held in Lagos earlier on, the CBN governor had maintained that the apex bank would not extend the deadline for swapping old naira notes with the newly redesigned ones, stating that the CBN and other stakeholders were already addressing areas where there were pressures.

Some prominent Nigerians, including Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki, the Peoples Democratic Party presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and his Labour Party counterpart, Peter Obi, Senator Ben Bruce and Accord Party Chairman, Mohammed Nalado supported the CBN policy.

Obaseki endorsed the policy in a post on his official Twitter handle on Monday while Atiku and Obi had argued in separate statements and a Twitter post that the merits of the new naira policy far outweighed the inconveniences Nigerians were experiencing.

But on Sunday, the Governor of Yobe State, Mai Mala Buni, lamented that people in the rural areas in the state were finding it difficult to get the new naira notes

In a Facebook post, he said, “I have ordered the opening of branches of the state-owned microfinance bank in the 17 local government areas of the state to enable the citizens to have access to financial services. As a government, it is our responsibility to look into all possible solutions to help our citizens access financial services. To achieve this, I have directed that the state-owned Yobe Microfinance Bank opens branches in each of the state’s 17 local governments.”


https://punchng.com/new-naira-govs-parties-begin-legal-battle-over-cbn-deadline/

In Just 3 days from today

Reserved

Did you see a video about bank staff escaping through the fence to avoid angry customers? Believe that story and you’ll believe anything.

It was staged, by APC governors in collusion with banks, for their court case against the CBN to suspend the deadline till after the elections

Corruption fighting back

Baalablu bluhu bulaba

K

Selfish governors

Irrespective of your political affiliations, if you're honest with yourself you'd agree that this currency redesign and swap was ill advised and poor executed. It would be in the interest of everybody for policies like this to be properly planned and adequate time allowed for implementation in case of next time.

They should continue.

Very idiotic people at d helm of affairs. D only way this country will implode finally is CBN not extending d deadline or not allowing us to spend d old notes again.

We will go d way Lebanon here in Ibadan. We will forcefully take our money from banks. People are already bracing up for that. It will be bloody

We won't seat down either, they will see the result of all this