Falana faults CBN over failure to obey Supreme Court order on old naira notes

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, has faulted the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for not obeying an order of the supreme court suspending the implementation of the February 10 deadline on the old naira notes.

Speaking in a television interview, monitored by TMY Newspapers, Falana said CBN has a responsibility to mandate commercial banks to obey the order of the supreme court.

“In a country where the rule of law operates, once the supreme court has determined a matter or given an order, it is expected that all and sundry – everybody – will comply with the order,” he said.

“In this instance, the government was not really ready to comply with the order. A statement was credited to the central bank that said since it was not a party to the case, it is not going to comply with the order.

“I thought that could only happen in a Banana Republic Because you would have expected the central bank to have issued a statement that following the order of the supreme court, all actions are seen on the 15th of February.

“I think the plaintiffs will have to take it up in the court. When the court in Abuja granted an order that Godwin Emefiele is not arrested, he wasn’t a party to the case,” Falana said.

“When he ran to use some proxies to file an action against the central bank board in Delta state, preventing the bank from moving against him for participating in politics, he wasn’t a party. So people can also choose to pick which orders of the court to obey.

“Unfortunately, the Central Bank appears to have incited the public against the banks because people now troop to the banks,” he said.

“Let the public know how much you have released to each bank so that we can also ask them can you justify what you did with the money. But if you run the country on the basis of secrecy, you leave people guessing and making allegations and counter-allegations.

“There was no committee to learn from what happened to Nigeria in 1984 when the Buhari military junta changed the colour of the naira and gave Nigeria only two weeks. At that time, the population was 81 million. Many people died and even committed suicide because they couldn’t get their money.”