South East breaking News
The Supreme Court of Nigeria has adjourned till March 3, for Judgement in suit challenging the implementation of the New Naira Policy, which bans the use of the old N200, N500 and N1000 banknotes as valid legal tenders.
A seven-man panel of the apex court, headed by Justice Inyang Okoro, adjourned for Judgement after all parties in the suit adopted their processes.
In Wednesday’s proceeding, the Apex court consolidated the different suits filed by Rivers, Nasarawa, Jigawa, Kano, Niger, and Abia states, with all the pending cases challenging the Naira swap policy that FG introduced through the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.
All the suits the apex court consolidated for hearing on Wednesday, were marked: SC/CV/162/23, SC/CS/197/23, SC/CV/200/23, SC/CV/210, SC/CV/227, SC/CV/229/23 and SC/CV/222/23.
It will be recalled that the Apex court had earlier joined seven states- Lagos, Cross Rivers, Ogun, Ekiti, Ondo, Sokoto and President Muhammadu Buhari’s homestate, Katsina, as parties to the suit that was filed by three northern states, Kogi, Kaduna and Zamfara states.
Though only the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami, SAN, was initially cited as the sole defendant in the matter, the apex court okayed requests by Edo and Bayelsa states to be allowed to join the suit to support FG as co-plaintiffs.
Rivers, Kano, Jigawa, Nasarawa and Abia states had maintained that there own case was different, stressing that their grouse was not only with the Naira swap policy, but also with the cash withdrawal limits the CBN allowed for corporate entities and individuals, respectively.
Details later