The President Muhammadu-led Federal Government has a history of disobeying court decisions, according to human rights attorney Femi Falana (SAN).
This was said by Falana during a Monday interview on Politics Today on Channels Television.
He said, “It is very sad. I do hope that this outgoing government would comply with the judgement in totality.”
Falana chastised the Federal Government for defying the Supreme Court's judgment and said that it had not given banks the go-ahead to start issuing and collecting old banknotes.
He stated, “The Central Bank has not been asked to make a statement allowing banks to comply with the judgement of the Supreme Court. Again, as I said before now, this can only happen in a banana republic.
“You cannot dance around the judgement of the Supreme Court otherwise, you are saying you don’t want the rule of law to operate in your country,” “It is very sad. I do hope that this outgoing government would comply with the judgement in totality.”
“So, we have such cases very many. The Supreme Court order admitted that “this government has a history of disobeying court orders.”
Falana claimed that the way in which the presidential and National Assembly elections were conducted demonstrated that the people are the true owners of power.
“There are some positive developments that were recorded. For instance, the myth of these political structures has been destroyed whereby people have shown that we are the structure, and the people are the structure ultimately,” he said.
Recall that months after the Federal Government began a policy of currency redesign, the Supreme Court recently decided that the previous N500 and N1,000 retain legal tender till December.
In order to seize control of the currency in circulation, the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, announced on October 26, 2022 that it will redesign the N200, N500, and N1,000 notes.
The presidency stated on Monday that the apex bank has no justification for defying the directive, despite the insistence that the deadline for the use of the old notes cannot be extended.
