The Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has described the position of President Muhammadu Buhari on the naira swap policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria as an affront on the Supreme Court.
He made his position known as a news conference he addressed in Port Harcourt, Rivers State capital, on Thursday.
The Eagle Online recalls that the Supreme Court had on February 15, 2023 directed the government to maintain the status quo of the old and new naira notes as legal tender pending the hearing of the suit brought by the Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara States Governments.
However, Buhari, in a nationwide broadcast, said the N500 and N1,000 old notes were no longer legal tenders.
Rather, he said the old N200 note will be reintroduced alongside the new notes until April 10, 2023.
Reacting, Wike flayed President Buhari, saying the decision was tantamount to interference with a pending lawsuit in the Supreme Court.
He described Buhari’s directive to the CBN to reintroduce only the old N200 note into the economy as an affront on the Supreme Court.
He said the President who ideally should be the epitome of the rule to law regrettably took deliberate steps to undermine the integrity of the Supreme Court, whose interim injunction on the naira swap matter was still subsisting and should be respected by he Federal Government.
Wike said: “As far as I am concerned, this is a complete interference, which is not good for our democracy.”
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