Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, has dismissed insinuations from Nigerians, including governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC), that President Muhammadu Buhari disobeyed the orders of the Supreme Court on the naira redesign.
Malami, while advancing the position of the Federal Government on the matter during his own turn at the weekly Ministerial Briefing organised by the Presidential Communication Team at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, maintained that the President had the duties to oversee the affairs of the country even within the pendency of the matter at the apex court.
Buhari, had on Thursday, February 16, 2023, in a national broadcast, directed the CBN to re-circulate the old N200 note, while declaring the old N500 and N1,000 notes were no more legal tender, a position which was frowned upon by not only some governors but some senior lawyers including Mike Ozekhome (SAN), one of Nigeria’s most celebrated constitutional lawyers.
In fact, so incensed were the governors that Nasir El-Rufai, Governor of Kaduna State, had to make a separate statewide broadcast on the same Thursday night, where he told residents in the state to ignore the President and continue to transact their business with the old notes.
Incidentally, El-Rufai, was among the three APC governors, alongside Yahaya Bello of Kogi and Bello Matawalle of Zamfara, who got the Supreme Court on February 8 to halt the FG’s move through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to peg the last date for the circulation of old notes to February 10.
Defending the FG against the allegations of breach of apex court’s order, Malami said: “Your question can best be answered within the context of what constitutes a rule of law in the Nigerian situation. Where an order is made by a court, you have multiple options but let me state before even addressing the issue of the options available at our disposal as a government.
“The fact, clearly, is that we are not in breach of any order made by the court, inclusive of any order associated with the naira redesign. We are not in breach. I believe I’m not a banker but you have not gone to establish which bank is it that you have gone to present N1000 or N500 notes that have been rejected. So we are not in breach.
“But then, assuming we are in breach, the fact remains that this matter is sub-judice as you rightly know. It’s being contested before the Supreme Court and when an order is made, you have multiple options within the context of the rule of law.
“One, you are entitled as a matter of right, if the facts and evidence support your position, to apply for setting it aside. The position of the law, legal jurisprudence is clear. Once you are attacking and you seeking for setting aside of an existing order of the court, you cannot be said to be operating in breach when you presented your application for setting aside.
“If the court is not an apex court, you equally have a right of appeal and support the right of appeal with an application of stay of execution order. So the bottom line of what I’m trying to state.
“If the matter is sub-judice and within the context of the rule of law, we are doing the needful as a government, in terms of ensuring that the right of the government, within the context of the naira redesign, is being protected, we are not in breach.”
