The Supreme Court of Nigeria has ordered a suspension of the deadline for the swapping of old to new Naira notes by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

The Supreme Court issued an interim injunction restraining the Federal Government from suspending the acceptance of the old Naira notes on the Friday February 10, 2023 deadline.

Wakadaily earlier report that government of Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara state have dragged the Federal Government before the Supreme Court over the scarcity of new and old naira notes seeking a restraining order to stop the full implementation of the policy.

The state governments expressed concern over the impact the CBN’s naira redesign program is having on their constituents.

The three northern states filed an ex-parte motion through their lawyer, AbdulHakeem Uthman Mustapha (SAN), and are urging the Supreme Court to grant them an interim injunction stopping the Federal Government either by itself or acting through the CBN, the commercial banks or its agents from carrying out its plan of ending the timeframe within which the now older versions of the 200, 500 and 1000 denominations of the Naira may no longer be legal tender on February 10, 2023.

Mustapha said, “Unless this Honourable Court intervenes, the Government and people of Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara State will continue to go through a lot of hardship and would ultimately suffer great loss as a result of the insufficient and unreasonable time within which the Federal Government is embarking on the ongoing currency redesign policy.

The states added that there has been a shortage in the supply of the new naira notes in Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara States and that citizens who have dutifully deposited their old naira notes have increasingly found it difficult and sometimes next to impossible to access new naira notes to go about their daily activities.”