Buhari’s N500, N1,000 notes ban is contempt of court – Ubani

Dr. Monday Onyekachi Ubani, Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association Section on Public Interest and Development Law (SPIDEL), has argued that President Muhammadu Buhari’s decision to ban old N500 and N1,000 notes on Thursday, amounted to contempt of court.

Recall that Buhari had in his address to Nigerians on Thursday morning, directed the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to recirculate old N200 notes, which he said would be legal tender till April 10, but maintained that N500 and N1,000 notes are no longer legal tender.

His pronouncement comes a day after the Supreme Court decided that its February 8 order barring the Federal Government and its agencies from enforcing the February 10 deadline for the use of old naira notes, including 200, 500 and 1000 notes still subsist.

Reacting to the development in a statement made available to Business Hallmark on Thursday afternoon, Ubani, a human rights lawyer, argued that President should have allowed the judicial process to run through.

According to him, “the President’s announcement this morning to the country is in clear contempt of the Supreme Court’s earlier order restraining the government from deadlining the old currency notes of 200, 500 and 1000, respectively until the application on notice before it is heard.”

Ubani insisted that Buhari’s “intervention though well intended as posited by some economists, sends a dangerous signal in our democracy. The international community are watching seeing how much we mess our system up. It is ill advised and no lawyer worth his salt should make unfounded allegation of bribery as reason to undermine the judiciary.

“The macro and micro economic benefits of this naira redesign may be altruistic and good for economic growth in the long run but the poor implementation strategy that have occasioned hardship has taken the shine off the good intentions.”

The senior lawyer regretted that the persistent naira scarcity has brought untold hardship on Nigerians, while noting that the federal government should should treat the CBN with kid gloves, as according to him, the apex bank is responsible for the scarcity and not commercial banks or Point of Sale (PoS) agents.

“People are suffering in having access to their money and the Central Bank that is the culprit is being treated with kid glove,” he said. “Let us not blame the POS agents and the banks for chaos and confusion in the implementation of the policy. The poor implementation strategy of the central bank is too glaring for everyone to see.”

Continuing, he said, “We are hoping that the 200 old notes will now be made available to the citizens to ease their sufferings.

“Finally I need to reiterate that the President erred in law to have subtley overruled the Supreme court’s express order. It is contemptuous of the Supreme Court Order simplicita. Let us not be carried away that he grudingly permitted old 200 naira notes to continue to be circulated till sometime in April this year. He has breached the Supreme Court Order by that announcement. For me as a lawyer it portends grave danger in our legal system.”