A chieftain of All Progressive Congress in Zamfara State, Alhaji Sani Abdullahi Shinkafi, has commended the Supreme Court judgement on the naira notes redesign, calling on the President Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to respect the rules of the law.
Addressing journalists in his residence in Gusau, Shinkafi said that Buhari must respect the Supreme Court’s verdict and allow both the new and old naira notes to exit concurrently until December 31.
“Since the Supreme court has ruled that the old and the new naira notes remain the legal tender, there is nobody in the country no matter how highly placed he is to violate the order.
“I am calling on President Muhammadu Buhari to respect the court order and quickly instruct the CBN to release the money into circulation.”
Shinkafi explained that the new naira notes policy has seriously affected many Nigerians who he said have been languishing in abject poverty since the introduction of the cashless policy.
According to Shinkafi, Buhari was ill-advised by the CBN Governor Mr. Godwin Emeifele, stressing that, “This is not the way advanced countries change their currencies.”
He cited examples with the United States of America, United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia where currencies used to be systematically changed without any expiration date.
“There has been change of currencies in countries like the USA, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia and other advanced countries but they don’t abruptly stop old notes from circulation.”
“What they normally do is that they allow the old notes to go with the new ones concurrently until the old ones finally return to banks”.
He commended governors of Zamfara, Kaduna and Kogi states for their giant efforts in saving the country from total collapse as a result of cash crunch.
He advised the governors to return to court if President Buhari, AGF and CBN refused to act as ordered by the Supreme court.
Shinkafi said, “The Governors have powers to apply for enforcement of form (48) contempt of court charge and form (49) committal to prison so that all the actors who choose to disregard the decision of the Apex Court can be taken to prison outrightly.”
He advised Nigerians to continue using both the old and the new Naira notes as legal tender until December 31 as instructed by the Apex court.
