The Supreme Court has halted the ban on the use of the old naira notes, which the Federal Government and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) vowed to enforce with effect from Friday, February 10, 2023.
The apex court handed down the temporary halt while ruling of the suit lodged by Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara states against the federal government seeking a restraining order to stop the full implementation of the naira redesign policy of the CBN.
In a motion ex-parte filed before the Supreme Court, the three states are praying the court to grant an interim injunction stopping the CBN from ending the timeframe within which the old N200, N500, and N1000 notes will cease to be legal tender.
The plaintiffs said since the announcement of the policy, there has been an acute shortage in the supply of the new naira notes in their states, adding that citizens who have dutifully deposited their old currency notes have increasingly found it difficult and sometimes next to impossible to access the new notes for their daily activities.