Politics
By Anthony Isibor
PROMINENT Nigerian lawyers are at daggers drawn over President Muhammadu Buhari and the Supreme Court’s decision on the validity or otherwise of the old Naira notes.
While some lawyers represented by Prof. Mike Ozekhome, SAN, and Femi Falana, SAN, are criticizing the President for overruling the decision of the apex court on the matter, others like Prof. Chidi Odinkalu and Emperor Ogbonna are in support of the decision.
The lawyers against President Buhari’s action argued that he has no right whatsoever to overrule the decision of any court of law, while those against the Supreme Court claimed that the court has no rights to adjudicate on currency matters.
According to Ozekhome, President Buhari has through his decision which overruled the Supreme Court of the land, has made himself Supreme Leader, an emperor, potentate, Mikado and overlord.
He noted that Buhari’s order was a frontal call to chaos, anarchy and national upheaval. It was a direct assault on the authority of the Supreme Court, the highest court of the land; and also the head of the entire Judiciary, the 3rd arm of government under the doctrine of separation of powers, most ably popularized in 1748 by Baron de Montesque, a great French Philosopher.
According to him, Buhari’s broadcast rather than re-assuring and calming the frayed nerves of a traumatized citizenry and a beleaguered nation, was the exact opposite, a complete anti-climax.
“It was a clarion call for total disenchantment, disillusionment, despair and desolation. The speech was not only highly unpresidential; but was vividly insensate and insensitive to the suffering of Nigerian citizens, who, due to no fault of theirs, can neither now use the old currency, nor access the new one.
Banks claim not to have the new currency in their vaults. What manner of government would consciously and deliberately throw its country into a spin, and its citizens under the bus, in a policy that could have been handled with better planning and more decency, efficiency and human face? This is the first time in my life I watch Nigerians buy money with money – buying Naira with Naira – at exorbitant exchange rates.
“To have whimsically and capriciously varied the order of the Supreme Court was to pick and choose what order to obey or disobey. This breaches the supremacy of the 1999 Constitution provided for in section 1(1) thereof. It also frontally assaults the provisions of section 287(1) of the Constitution, which provides that “the decisions of the Supreme Court shall be enforced in any part of the Federation by all authorities and persons, and by courts with subordinate jurisdiction to that of the Supreme Court.
“Once given, an order of the court is binding on all. The Apex Court in ROSSEK V. ACB LTD (1993) 8 NWLR (Pt. 312) 382 at 434 re-stated the law to the effect that:
“A judgment remains binding until it is set aside by a competent Court… To hold otherwise is to clothe a party against whom a judgment has been obtained with the discretion to decide, in his wisdom that the judgment is invalid and not binding on him. This to my mind, is an invitation to anarchy. I do not understand the law to be so.” – per Ogundare, JSC.
Also, in STATE v. SOLOMON (2020) LPELR-55598(SC), the Supreme Court held thus: “It is the law that a decision of a Court of competent jurisdiction, no matter that it is seems palpably null and void, unattractive or insupportable, remains good law and uncompromisingly binding until set aside by a superior Court of competent jurisdiction,” he added.
Collaborating Ozekhome’s position, another Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, Femi Falana, accused the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, of flouting the interim injunction of the Supreme Court, suspending the implementation of the February 10 deadline on the use of the old banknotes.
Falana, who was speaking on Channels Television’s The 2023 Verdict on Tuesday, said the government was not ready to comply with the order.
Citing a statement, which he said, was credited to the CBN; that since it was not a party to the case, it’s not going to comply with the order. I thought that could only happen in a banana republic, Falana said that in a country where the rule of law operates, once the Supreme Court has determined a matter or given an order, it is expected that all and sundry – everybody – will comply with the order.
“I expected the central bank to have issued a statement following the order of the Supreme Court: ‘all actions are stale until the 15th of February.
“For me, an example has to be made this time around, so that nobody will feel that he’s above the law in our country,” he added.
However, in a contrary opinion, Prof. Odinkalu while speaking during an interview; The Verdict 2023, a programme aired on Channels Television, said that neither the President nor the CBN governor disobeyed the orders of the court, adding that the authority of the country’s currency outweighed the matter.
According to him, the president has the full power to insist on a cashless policy.
“The Supreme Court has not said what people are meaning (and) presenting it as having said. Because, that is not a policy of the court, it’s a misplacement of the capabilities and assets of a court for it to get to that kind of thing. I suspect what the Supreme Court has said is preserve the status quo ante until we hear the case, status quo antebellum, which is what the thing was before the onset of litigation.
“Now, the question then becomes, what was the status quo antebellum that you are trying to preserve? And this is where the laziness of the judicial system as well as the limitations of law actually come to full view, because status quo antebellum actually, was the Central Bank circular on exactly when this thing should stop. I suspect this is the advice the President got, he has not breached anything.”
Odinkalu also said that actions and orders of governors, countering the President’s order on the policy amounted to treason, adding that they could not ask the President to yield authority on currency systems.
“The core of a government’s credibility, national or international is three things; defence and security, foreign affairs and currency. On this matter, I think President Buhari is fighting for the last thing a government should fight for and on that, he is well within his rights to do so.
“I don’t think it is proper for state governors to go around, issue orders countermanding a President on exactly the thing that a central government cannot negotiate – money and currency. And quite frankly, what the governors are doing in this matter, verges on treason. You cannot be telling a President to yield up his authority over currency system, that is not negotiable at all. These are the people who quarrel Nnamdi Kanu, and they are going ahead to do the same thing? I’m sorry, that is not negotiable,” he added.
Similarly Emperor Ogbonna, an Abia state lawyer, believes that the President’s action was in the interest of the nation as he saved Nigeria from impending anarchy. “What the President did was necessary to save the nation from heading towards anarchy”
“CBN cannot be bound by that order upon which it was not joined as a party. CBN knows that you cannot initiate contempt proceeding against it when it was not given a fair hearing and not a party to the suit.
“Filing a suit without joining the CBN is creating anarchy.
“The President as the Commander and Chief has a duty to make a pronouncement, even though it is the CBN that makes pronouncements on the fiscal policy of the country.
“It is now for the CBN to save the country from anarchy by validating what the President said, that only the old N200 note is legal tender because it is only the CBN that determines what is legal tender.
“What the President just did was to cure the problem created by the suit.
“President Buhari cannot commit contempt of court because he has immunity.
“Although you can say that the President is the head of government, his office is different from the Federal Government of Nigeria.
“What the President did is different from what the suit before the Supreme Court is all about.
“The suit is for February 10, while the President extended the validity of the N200 note till April.
“The President has a duty to govern. He cannot fold his hands and see the country degenerating into anarchy because of the policy of the Federal Government or the CBN,” he added.
However, it doesn’t seem to matter which party is winning the discussion at the moment because the reality all over the country is that President Buhari’s position to stop using the old 500 and 1000 Naira Notes and allow the old N200 to run alongside the new notes till April 10 seem to be guiding the decision of the Nigerian populace.
The position of President Buhari has so far been enforced by Godwin Emefiele, the CBN governor, who has ordered the banks to follow the President’s directive to the latter.
A.I
Tags: Femi Falana Godwin Emefiele President Muhammadu Buhari Prof. Chidi Odinkalu Prof. Mike Ozekhome
