Naira policy: Has Supreme Court ruling been complied with?

It was an either-or advice. Coming from the eminent members of the Council of State (CoS) that he invited to a meeting at the State House in Abuja last Friday, President Muhammadu Buhari was expected to ensure that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) heeded the advice without wasting time. Four days after the meeting, the nation is still waiting on the President and CBN to do sonething. When will they act? Only the President and CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, can say.

The advice was simple and straightforward: Print more new notes or recirculate old ones. The CoS would have thought deeply before proffering that advice. Members of this eminent group are part of the society. They live among the people and so know what has been happening in the past few weeks. The country is bogged down by a cash crunch brought about by the redesign of the N200, N500 and N1000 notes by CBN, which initially gave January 31 for the phasing out of the old notes of the same denomination.

But there was a snag. The people returned the old notes to their banks, but they were not given the new notes in return. The banks claimed that they did not have the old notes. CBN said that was not true, insisting that there was enough stock of the new notes to go round. More than two months after the new notes were unveiled by the President, many Nigerians have not been able to access the money. They only see the notes in newspaper and television adverts. A lucky few have seen it with friends, colleagues and relations. This is how scarce the new notes are. But Nigerians were made to believe that all they needed to do was walk into their banks with the old notes and the new ones would be given to them.

The CoS met on the Friday that the seven-day ultimatum the President gave himself to address the cash swap crisis expired. He had asked for the seven days after meeting with All Progressives Congress (APC) governors on February 3 over the lingering crisis. He blamed banks for “their inefficiency and being concerned about themselves alone”. “I will revert to the CBN and minting company. There will be a decision one way or the other in the remaining seven days of the 10-day extension”, he promised in a statement by his spokesman Garba Shehu. May be that decison will come tomorrow.

The CoS’ advice, which came two days after the Supreme Court suspended the new February 10 deadline for phasing out the old notes, was an opportunity for the President to redeem his pledge, observers said last night. The President, they said, should have used the advice to address the sufferings of the masses over the policy by allowing the old and new notes to co-exist. “What was the essence of calling the meeting when he knew he would not carry out the advice of the advisory body?” They asked. The CoS is a creation of the 1999 Constitution. It is empowered under Section 6 (b) of Part 1 of the Third Schedule of the Constitution to: “advise the President whenever requested to do so on the maintenance of public order within the Federation or any part thereof and on such other matters as the President may direct”.

The Council has done its bit, it is left for the President to do his to ease the pains of the public. Living on a daily basis has become difficult for Nigerians, with the expiration of the February 10 deadline for the cash swap. Despite the Supreme Court’s order suspending the deadline, the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami (SAN), the sole respondent in the suit brought by Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara states, has done nothing to give effect to the order. His job is to advise the President and Emefiele to  obey the order. He is only paying lip service to obeying the order. In one breath, he said, the government would comply with the interim injunction, and in another, he said he would contest the propriety of the order.

The attorney-general has the right to challenge the order, but he can only do so by first complying with it. He cannot be in contempt of the court and at the same time accuse it of making an unlawful order. Hearing will resume in the case at the Supreme Court tomorrow. On what basis will Malami seek to be heard when he and his clients, the President and Emefiele, have not complied with the interim injunction suspending the cash swap deadline? If they had complied, Emefiele should by now have told the nation that the old and new notes would be in use together until the conclusion of the case. The silence of the President and Emefiele has worsened the people’s predicament.

The President has not made his position known since the expiration of the seven days ultimatum he gave himself nor said anything about the CoS’ advice, while Emefiele has refused to tell the banks what to do in respect of the old and new notes following the Supreme Court’s order and the CoS’ advice. In many parts of the country, the old notes have ceased being legal tender as some individuals and organisations no longer accept the money. A supermarket in Kano was forced to reverse its decision not to accept the notes after Governor Abdullahi Ganduje shut it down. Only such interventions can save the populace from the antics of such stores and related organisations.

Will CBN suffer any damage if the old and new notes are allowed to co-exist? What damage will it suffer? None that is known of. Otherwise, there won’t be calls on it to allow the old and new notes to exist parri pasu. Can everybody be wrong and only the President and Emefiele right on this issue? Why are they not listening to the voices of reason? The Bretton Wood institutions – World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) – also weighed into the naira redesign policy, asking that the deadline be extended. According to the multilateral institutions, the 108-day window given by the CBN to rest the old notes was too short.  The President and Emefiele do not want to hear that. They believe that even if the exercise is extended for one year, people will still come up with excuses on why it should be further extended.

With this kind of mindset, Nigerians may have long to wait for the President to come to their aid. But has he not seen the lie in Emefiele’s assurance that CBN and the minting company have all it takes to print the new notes? For how long will Nigerians continue to buy the naira at an exhorbitant cost in order to survive before he acts? Why should the government stand by and allow moneychangers to skin their compatriots alive by exchanging N100,000 for N125,000? Maybe, the Supreme Court will save the day by straightening Malami out when hearing resumes in the pending cash swap case tomorrow.