By Olawale Akinremi
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has been warned against the consequences of disregarding the Supreme Court’s judgment directing that the old naira notes should co-exist with the new one until Dec. 31.
Mr Seun Abimbola, a former Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in Oyo State, gave the warning on Tuesday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan.
Abimbola, who is also a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), said that there was no need for CBN to issue any special order to commercial banks before they could allow people to withdraw their money.
According to him, the action of CBN and government might be too daring in the event that the judgment handed down by the apex court was not implemented.
“The consequences of disregarding the judgment that allows old naira notes of N500 and N1,000 alongside the newly redesigned ones to circulate until Dec. 31 might be too grave on any office holder, be it elected or appointed.
“I don’t want to believe that the CBN does not want to implement the judgment. I feel that they are only waiting to be formally served with a copy of the judgment.
“People have the right to start walking to the banks to start collecting their money without any special directive from the CBN to the commercial banks,” Abimbola said.
Corroborating him, an Ibadan-based lawyer, Mr Jubril Mohammed, contended that refusal of anybody to comply with the Supreme Court’s pronouncement was contemptuous.
Mohammed, however, said it might be too hasty to conclude that CBN and the Federal Government would not respect the judgment.
“The judgment does not need any further interpretation and the compliance; it should have taken place immediately it was given.
“It is in the interest of the CBN Governor to obey the judgment,” the legal practitioner said.
In his views, a Human Rights lawyer, Mr Femi Aborisade, said that fundamentally, the Federal Government, has no discretion, but to obey the decision of the apex court of the land.
Aborisade described the implication of government not obeying the decision of the court as “arbitrarinesss, lawlessness and impunity of the highest order”.
This, according to him, has no place in a system of government predicated on a written Constitution.
“In the event of the government disobeying the judgment, committal proceedings may be set in motion against the Attorney-General of the Federation.
“That proceeding may compel the Federal Government to, in turn, insist that the CBN should obey the judgment.
“The CBN/CBN Governor cannot be proceeded against, because the CBN was not a party to the suit,” he said.
NAN reports that with the judgment delivered on Friday the situation in banks visited were still the same.
It was gathered that some bank officials have not been directed otherwise by the apex bank. (NAN)
