Malami Misled Buhari To Disobey Supreme Court Order – El-rufai

Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State has accused the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, of advising President Muhammadu Buhari to disobey a Supreme Court order on naira redesign policy.

In a statewide broadcast on Thursday, El-Rufai said the misguided action of Malami to mislead the President into disobeying the apex court order shows how desperate the architects of the policy are to cause national chaos.

The governor added that President Buhari’s decision has shown an open contempt for the judiciary with the announcement that the old 200 naira note remains legal tender.

He said: “It is also quite revealing that the Federal Government and its agencies not only disobeyed the February 8 ruling by continuing to say the February 10th deadline stands. It is shocking to see the blatant violation of the subsisting and continuing order of the Supreme Court that ALL the old and new notes should continue to be legal tender until it gives judgment in the case filed by the Kaduna State Government along with several others.

“The address by the President earlier this morning limiting the legal tender status of old notes to only N200 amounts to total disregard and disobedience of the ruling of February 8th which was extended further yesterday by the Supreme Court.

“The misguided action of the Attorney-General to mislead the President into engaging in this public violation of the order of the highest court of the land shows how desperate the policy architects are to cause national chaos, by showing open contempt for the judiciary.”

El-Rufai added that the decision to recognize only N200 as legal tender till April 10 was offered to the state governments as part of proposals for an out-of-court settlement three days ago.

He said the governors rejected the offer and said that not a single higher denomination note had been destroyed, saying that the recirculation of the 200 naira notes is inadequate in alleviating the suffering of Nigerians.

He said: “The decision to recognize only N200 as legal tender till April that the President announced this morning was offered to the state governments as part of proposals for an out-of-court settlement three days ago. The Federal Government asserted that this was offered because all the ‘old’ ₦1,000 and N500 notes had been destroyed.

“We rejected the offer and proved to the officials that not a single higher denomination note had been destroyed. We also believe that circulating N200 only to be inadequate in alleviating the suffering that we see every day. We insisted that all the components of the Supreme Court order should be complied with.

“But back home, what do we do in Kaduna State? My dear of people of Kaduna State, with the foregoing revelations, it is clear that our peaceful coexistence as a state, and a nation, is being placed under deliberate danger using the intentional combination of fuel and cash supply disruptions.

“These evil people using the instrumentality of the Federal Government and the President as convenient covers are willing to truncate our democracy because they have personally lost out.

“They are massively deploying resources and tools to defeat the political party that gave us the platform to serve the country just because they could not impose the candidates of their choice. Let us not help them.”

Recall that the Zamfara, Kogi, Kaduna, and five other states had instituted the suit against the Federal Government and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) over the naira redesign policy which has brought hardship to Nigerians.

The states urged the Supreme Court to compel President Muhammadu Buhari, the CBN, and commercial banks to rescind the February 10 deadline for the old N200, N500, and ₦1,000 banknotes as Nigeria’s legal tender.

In a ruling last week Wednesday, the Supreme Court ordered the federal government to halt the implementation of the currency redesign policy pending the determination of the substantive suit.

The apex court also ordered the Federal Government, CBN, and commercial banks from implementing the deadline for the old 200, 500, and 1000 naira notes to stop being legal tender.

The apex court also stopped the three defendants from continuing with the deadline pending the determination of a notice in respect of the issue.

However, the federal government filed a preliminary objection to the suit, arguing that the apex court lacks the jurisdiction to entertain the matter.

During the resumption of the suit on Wednesday, the Supreme Court adjourned the hearing of the case to Wednesday, February 22.