Buhari, Emefiele and the assault on the rule of law

Legal fireworks are expected Wednesday in the Supreme Court, in the case filed by Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara States against the Federal Government, on the terminal date of using the old naira notes, in abeyance, as this matter is further postponed until February 22. But the court seems to have confirmed the previous decision on the old currency notes as legal tender. This was accompanied by a complaint by the legal counsel for the three countries that the order has flagrantly been observed in the publication. There is no ode to this regime with its notorious executive lawlessness and disregard for the rule of law. Nigeria is a democracy, not a banana republic, and it should be seen to be true.

With official diffidence and reluctance to do what is right, fit and proper with the redesign and circulation of new naira notes, most Nigerians will breathe for a time again in the unending vortex of confusion and extreme difficulties. This monetary policy of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), as approved by the Federal Government, is an impossible project! Unfortunately, there is no other way to put it. Mopping up N2.7 trillion from circulation, and returning only a measly N300 billion to the economy board, with an additional N200 billion injection planned as a mountain tension, will not work. At best, it will hardly scratch the national cash requirement.

In extreme cases, the death of a member has occurred where the family cannot have access to money in the bank to buy drugs or pay hospital bills. A surreal video of a disturbing man and a woman fully naked in a bank hall, as an expression of frustration at not having access to money has gone viral on social media. More states, including Lagos, Bayelsa, Edo, Ondo, Sokoto, Cross Rivers and Ekiti, have joined the suit for a joint hearing on that date, underscoring the seriousness of the matter.

On February 8, the Supreme Court, in an ex parte application brought earlier by three countries, reversed the February 10 order to use the old denominations of N200, N500 and N1000, as legal tender, which the CBN had set. . Legal imprimatur must be paid to all controversies regarding the use of old currency notes, pending the determination of substantive claims before the Supreme Court. This was not for President Muhammadu Buhari, as the Attorney General and the Minister of Justice filed preliminary objections, insisting that the governor’s case should be dismissed as the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case.

However, the apex court’s order has given short-lived relief to all citizens. But to our dismay, the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, has openly disobeyed the order. In a meeting with members of the diplomatic corps on Tuesday, he stressed that the February 10 deadline cannot be violated. PREMIUM TIMES believe that this is a slap in the face of law and order in the country, which should not be allowed to stand. In a democratic country, the Supreme Court is a constitutional court that pronounces, of course, the law. Everyone, including the President, is bound.

President Buhari tried to calm the frayed nerves and fix yesterday, in his morning broadcast he directed the CBN to re-circulate the old N200 denomination only for 60 days, to ease cash shortages. This reprieve will end on April 10. But this will not solve the cash problem, with Emefiele’s obduracy. They did not keep their previous word on the amount of money they were allowed to withdraw by their customers. From Edo, Delta, Kwara to Kali, Ondo and Oyo State, there have been protests, some quite violent, leading to the burning of bank ATMs in Delta State.

Instructively, the rule of law is the foundation of a fair and just society. To ignore it in any guise is an open invitation to anarchy. This is the path of hunger that Emefiele chose. He had to stop now. Following the CBN stance, traders, commercial drivers and service providers have stopped accepting old naira notes, just as banks have refused customer deposits.

The important point in the President’s speech is the usual indecisiveness or confusion and lives in the arrogance of Louis XIV, King of France in the 17th century, who has declared with confidence: “I am the country.” The apex court ruling is that the status quo ante must remain, and that means using the old N500 and N1000 bank notes as legal tender. Reports across the country clearly show the closure of banks, even in Abuja and Lagos, due to lack of new naira notes. Several banks have been attacked, while workers have jumped over barbwire fences to escape violent attacks by frustrated customers looking for money.

What is happening across the country is the unimaginable paradox of a government that is harassing its own citizens. Earlier this month, the Kano State Governor, Umar Gandujestopped the President’s state visit as intelligence alerted him of security breaches being planned by the youth to show their angst over the naira chaos.

Emefiele and CBN should stop hiding their fingers by saying that they did not join the suit before the Supreme Court. That’s their policy. Emefiele cannot pick and choose which court rulings to follow. In the shelter of the judgment of the High Court in Abuja on December 29, which prevented the State Security Service (SSS) from arresting, harassing and intimidating him, cocooned abroad and then, Emefiele returned home unmolested. This is a case filed by the Incorporated Trustees of the Forum on Accountability and Good Leadership to prevent the planned arrest of the CBN Governor by state operators over allegations of treason and corruption. They are not integrated into the civil society setting but they give it a breather.

Scarcity of naira notes has become a gut problem that threatens the daily lives of Nigerians. The recent avowal of Emefiele that the crisis has subsided due to over-the-counter access of naira notes by the public in banks is both specious and dubious. From N100,000, later increased to N500,000, which he said bank customers can withdraw every week, people have been queuing up all day just to withdraw a small amount like N2,000 or N3,000.

Of course there are limits to jumping into the economic paradigm of the Western world, which has taken decades of research and capital investment to develop perfectly. It beggars belief how a country of about 200 million people, of which only about 34% have a bank account, seems to be bothered to transit to a cashless economy. This is unrealistic, if not impossible. Many digital transactions carried out by customers, even in the halls of banks, are increasingly failing. This speaks volumes – that the technological infrastructure needed for this system and transition to work optimally is not there.

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Governor Ganduje, one of the masterminds of the High Court case, was informed that 24 Local Government Areas in Kano State, out of 44 councils, do not have banks. In Yobe State, four local councils do not have banks, out of 17; while the APC apparatchik, Salihu Lukman, who is the party’s national vice-chairman in the North-West, said 300 Local Government Areas in the whole north do not have banks. How will the people in these areas cope?

Buhari and Emefiele should eat humble pie and acknowledge the strange results of this policy. This experiment is similar to the jump from the First Industrial Revolution – involving the use of hoes and cutlasses for agriculture and steam engines in factories, without mastering this here – to the Fourth Revolution of artificial intelligence, quantum computing, genetic engineering, the Internet of things and others, not supported by a good education system in order to develop.