The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has filed a lawsuit against President Muhammadu Buhari over ‘the unlawful directive banning the use of old N500 and N1,000 banknotes’.

Development Diaries reports that a seven-man panel of the Supreme Court had on 08 February granted an interim injunction restraining the federal government from implementing the CBN’s February 10 deadline for the naira swap.

However, the president, in a nationwide broadcast, directed the CBN to release only the old N200 notes into circulation till 10 April, 2023 – an action that is contrary to the position of the Supreme Court.

President Buhari gave the directive after protests broke out in some states on Wednesday, 15 February, over the scarcity of the new N200, N500, and N1,000 notes and rejection of the old ones.

The demonstrators took to the streets in reaction to commercial banks nationwide rejecting the old currency in line with a position taken by the apex.

SERAP, in the suit number FHC/ABJ/CS/233/2023, filed at the Federal High Court, Abuja, is asking the court to determine ‘whether Buhari’s directive banning the N500 and N1,000 banknotes is not inconsistent and incompatible with the constitutional duties to obey decisions of the Supreme Court and oath of office’.

Joined in the suit as defendants are the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, and the CBN.

Section 287, subsection one of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, provides that the decisions of the Supreme Court shall be enforced in any part of the federation by all authorities and persons.

‘The decisions of the Supreme court shall be enforced in any part of the federation by all authorities and persons, and by courts with subordinate jurisdiction to that of the Supreme Court,’ the section reads.

SERAP is asking the court for ‘a declaration that Buhari’s directive banning the use of old N500 and N1,000 banknotes is a fundamental breach of section 287(1) of the Nigerian Constitution 1999, as amended, and his constitutional oath of office, and therefore unconstitutional, unlawful, null and void’.

It also seeks an order of interim injunction restraining Buhari, the CBN and Malami, their agents or privies, from further enforcing the presidential directive banning the old N500 and N1,000 banknotes, pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice filed in its suit.

No date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit, which was filed on behalf of SERAP by its lawyers, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa and Kolawole Oluwadare.

Development Diaries had on Friday called on the president and the CBN governor to respect the order of the apex court.

Photo source: Paul Kagame