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Governor El-Rufai Orders Kaduna Residents To Continue Spending All Old Naira Notes
Governor El-Rufai has ordered Kaduna residents to continue spending all old Naira notes.
Nasir el-Rufai, Governor of Kaduna, says the old and new notes remain legal tender in the state pending the supreme court’s decision.
This online newspaper recalls that in a televised address on Thursday morning, Buhari said he has directed the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to extend the validity of old N200 notes till April 10.
The president also said all existing old N1,000 and N500 notes will remain redeemable at the CBN and designated points for 60 days.
This came less than 24 hours after the supreme court insisted that the old notes were still valid, and adjourned the case filed by several states — including Kaduna — challenging the deadline on the old notes till February 22.
In a broadcast on Thursday, Governor El-Rufai said all the old notes would remain legal tender until the apex court determines the suit on the matter.
He also assured residents of the state of efforts to ease the hardship caused by the scarcity of naira notes.
“On behalf of the government of Kaduna state, I wish to express my deepest regret at the needless suffering you are enduring as a result of the prolonged fuel shortage and the difficulties occasioned by the so-called ‘currency redesign’ policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria,” the Kaduna governor said.
“We understand your pain. I assure you that as your state governor, I have been working with my other colleagues to do everything in our power to end these pains.
“Even when confronted with the facts above, the CBN and its masters remain determined to implement their agenda no matter how much human suffering, death and destruction results. It is clear that the architects of this policy always had objectives that are totally in conflict with public interest, peace and the unity of Nigeria. They neither considered our suggestions in line with the Court order, nor respected the unanimous resolution of the Council of State.
“It is also quite revealing that the Federal Government and its agencies not only disobeyed the February 8th ruling by continuing to say the February 10th deadline stands. It is shocking to see the blatant violation of the subsisting and continuing order of the Supreme Court that ALL the old and new notes should continue to be legal tender until it gives judgment in the case filed by the Kaduna State Government along with several others.
“The address by the President earlier this morning limiting the legal tender status of old notes to only N200 amounts to total disregard and disobedience of the ruling of February 8th which was extended further yesterday by the Supreme Court. The misguided action of the Attorney-General to mislead the President into engaging in this public violation of the order of the highest court of the land shows how desperate the policy architects are to cause national chaos, by showing open contempt for the judiciary.
“The decision to recognise only N200 as legal tender till April that the President announced this morning was offered to the state governments as part of proposals for an out-of-court settlement three days ago. The Federal Government asserted that this was offered because all the ‘old’ N1,000 and N500 notes had been destroyed. We rejected the offer and proved to the officials that not a single higher denomination note had been destroyed. We also believe that circulating N200 only to be inadequate in alleviating the suffering that we see every day. We insisted that all the components of the Supreme Court order should be complied with.
“But back home, what do we do in Kaduna State? My dear of people of Kaduna State, with the foregoing revelations, it is clear that our peaceful coexistence as a state, and a nation, is being placed under deliberate danger using the intentional combination of fuel and cash supply disruptions.
“These evil people using the instrumentality of the Federal Government and the President as convenient covers are willing to truncate our democracy because they have personally lost out. They are massively deploying resources and tools to defeat the political party that gave us the platform to serve the country just because they could not impose the candidates of their choice. Let us not help them.
