The Central Bank of Nigeria on January 29, extended the deadline for phasing out the old note from January 31 to February 10.
Following the naira crunch, the the Supreme Court temporarily stopped the CBN’s deadline.
It means for now, the CBN has not communicated any other deadline for the old naira note to stop being a legal tender.
The ruling order by the CBN was after three states, Kaduna, Kogi, and Zamfara had brought an ex parte application to the Supreme Court.
These states petitioned that the court stops the CBN from enforcing the deadline of the old naira swap by setting a provisional measure.
Following this, a seven-member panel of the supreme court led by John Okoro, made a ruling order.
The ruling was disclosed on Thursday by the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami.
He said that the Federal Government regard the rule of law and will obey the decision of the Supreme Court.
Recall that the Central Bank of Nigeria announced her policy on the New note design in October 26.
The new naira note started to be in circulation in December 16. They are not much in circulation, causing cash crunch.
After several pleas from political leaders, traditional leaders, stakeholders, the CBN announced an extension.
Following the initial deadline of January 31, most Nigerians deposited all the cash they had hoping to get the new naira note.
Unfortunately, this was not the case as the redesigned Naira was not available. The old note was also not available.
This resolved into the purchase of money from PoS vendors for at least 10% of the original cost.
That is, if you want to receive 1000, you would pay 100 naira.
Considering these hardship caused by the new as it relates to their respective states, Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara applied to the Supreme Court for intervention.
After the ruling order for the CBN to suspend the deadline, the court adjourned the case to February 15, 2023, for hearing of the main suit.
