Lawyer Seeks Court Leave To File Contempt Charges Against Emefiele

A Lagos-based human right lawyer, Tope Alabi, has urged the Federal High Court in Lagos for permission to file contempt proceedings against the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Godwin Emefiele for allegedly disobeying the Supreme Court orders on its naira redesign policy.

The lawyer made the request in an ex parte application he filed on March 27, which has Emefiele as the sole respondent.

Alabi who described the naira swap policy as a “cash confiscation policy” added that it had affected the day-to-day running of his office as his staff could not make it to work daily due to the non-availability of physical cash.

“Commercial drivers “do not have a point of sale (POS) device/machine to collect fares.”

The lawyer attached a 28-page affidavit to support his application wherein he claimed that the Supreme Court on March 10, in Suit No. SC. 162/2023, “directed Emefiele to make available and allow the old naira notes of N200, N500 and N1,000 to co-exist as legal tender with the new N200, N500 and N1,000 notes till December 2023.

“The respondent who had withdrawn N200, N500 and N1,000 old notes from circulation on 10 February 2023 has refused to comply with the Order of the Supreme Court made on 10 March 2023 till date by releasing the old notes to circulation.”

Alabi further claimed that the CBN’s alleged non-compliance with the Supreme Court Order on time has affected his job as a legal practitioner as I could not have access to daily physical cash to carry out my job and meet little daily expenses.

“That I brought this application to seek leave to enforce the Supreme Court Order being a non-party to the suit at the Supreme Court,” he stated.