More troubles for Emefiele, Malami over Naira notes

More troubles seem to be coming the way of the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN, and Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, over their refusal to implement the Supreme Court judgment on the naira redesign policy of the Federal Government.

There are reports that some state governments are planning to initiate contempt proceedings against the two men over non-implementation of last Friday’s judgement.

The silence of President Muhammadu Buhari, on the judgment of the apex court had fuelled the rejection of the remaining old N500 and N1,000 as legal tender.

ValidView Network had earlier reported that some banks on Monday commenced paying customers the old notes in partial compliance with the Supreme Court judgment, but by Wednesday the banks stopped disbursing the old notes as the CBN insisted that it had not given any directive to that effect.

Counsel for Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara states, which dragged the Federal Government before the Supreme Court on the matter, Abdulhakeem Mustapha (SAN), told reporters in an interview that Malami was served with the enrolled order and the Certified True Copy of last week’s judgment on Friday afternoon, adding that he expected immediate compliance with the judgment as the non-service of the documents had given the government and the CBN an escape route.

Mustapha said, “The Attorney-General of the Federation has been served now and we will take it up from there; if there is no compliance now, we will commence committal proceedings against the attorney-general and the CBN governor. When the Supreme Court talks, the constitution makes it compulsory for all government representatives and everybody to comply with its order. It’s not discretional, you have to obey, it is the last and the final and that is why we have separation of power.

“The presence of separation of power is for checks and balances; when the Supreme Court talks, it must be complied with by all persons.”

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Meanwhile, it was gathered on Friday that cash had dried up in most banks in Lagos and Ogun states due to what senior bankers described as the inability of the CBN to supply them with new naira notes.

Many of the banks claimed that they have not received cash from the CBN in the last one week.