22nd February, 2023
The Supreme Court on Wednesday insisted that it will hear the suit filed by some governors against the naira swap policy of the Federal Government and the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The apex court insisted that it will hear the suit regardless of whether the FG obeyed its previous orders on the matter or not.
Justice Inyang Okoro said this while responding to argument by the Lagos State counsel Moyosore Onigbanjo, that the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami should not be allowed to defending respondents in the suit because of the violation of previous orders of the Supreme Court.
Onigbanjo said the apex court should first deal with issue contempt which he said supersedes the issue of jurisdiction Malami raised.
But Justice Okoro said the court will not allow such argument to stop hearing of the suit.
“You are not a stranger to this country. We don’t want a situation where the judiciary will be a scapegoat. We refuse to be the scapegoat”.
“We are hearing this matter today. We don’t intend to keep this matter longer… whether they obey it or not,” The Punch quoted the Supreme Court justice as saying.
Also, all the suits instituted by 16 State Governments against the Federal Government challenging the mode of implementation of the newly introduced Cashless Policy regime were consolidated before the beginning of the hearing.
In a brief ruling, Justice Inyang Okoro granted the request and ordered consolidation of the 16 suits into one.
A motion for the consolidation was argued by Emmanuel Ukala, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria SAN representing Rivers State.
Ukala while moving the motion on notice premised the consolidation request on the need for the suit to be heard without any hinderance since the matter bothers on same issue.
The 16 states are slugging it out with the federal government in the battle against the implementation of the Cashless Policy of the CBN.