CISLAC, Other 38 CSOs Call On FG To Obey Supreme Court

Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, CISLAC, and other 38 Civil Society Organisations, CSOs, has called on the Federal Government to obey Supreme Court pronouncement on Naira swap policy. The leaders of the CSOs made the call at a press conference titled ‘State of the Nation’ which Auwal Ibrahim Rafsanjani, Jaye Gaskia, and others read an address, which pointed out the deepening hardship Nigerians are going through with no solution to the Naira crisis that has engulfed the nation. They also condemned crackdown of protesters who are expressing their pain over scarcity of Naira, as it infringes on their rights as citizens who are out to make their government know the hardship they are passing through.

However, the CSOs said citizens who embark on acts of destroying private and public property are taking laws into their hands and is unacceptable. The CSOs said “the exercise was unleashed at a time that Nigerian citizens are reeling from the effects of contrived fuel scarcity, insecurity of endemic proportions, galloping inflation and attendant stress on conditions and cost of living. It needs to emphasised that the Naira redesign exercise has exposed the poor thinking in implementation, resulting in avoidable scarcity of the redesigned denominations of the currency – N200, N500 and N1,000 notes; opportunistic hoarding and diversions by banks; profiteering practices by PoS operators, filling stations and bank officials; denial to citizens of access to their own funds to meet their basic needs of food and health; and, a potential threat to inclusive and participatory democracy despite the registration of large number of voters across Nigeria. The events of the last few weeks appear as orchestrated political template aimed at undermining the very foundation of our national existence.

“There are disturbing signals from the posture of the Federal Government seem to suggest that Nigeria has a long way to go to combat the destructive culture of impunity. It is shocking that despite the provision of separation of powers in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended), the Federal Government of Nigeria has continued to treat the opinions of the legislature in various resolutions of national importance with disdain. To make matters worse, the Federal Government has outright refused to, and even countermand the pronouncement of the Supreme Court on the deadline for the status of the old denominations of the Naira as legal tender. Although the purveyors of the Naira redesign policy and its precipitate implementation continue to point to the intended aim of curbing vote buying in the upcoming general elections, it is quite obvious from unfolding events in the country that the primary outcome of the implementation of the exercise is imposing avoidable and unnecessary hardships on the citizens across the country.

“The consequence of this is that the over-whelming majority of ordinary citizens, have now found themselves in a position of fiscal paralysis, with no access to cash, and without the ability to undertake unhindered transactions through digital platforms. The end result has been that small and medium businesses, in the informal sector, in particular, have been faced with unquantifiable losses, epileptic operations, sudden shut downs or have ground to a halt. Even large businesses in the formal sector, have not escaped the debilitating impact of the scarcity of cash, and the inability to undertake unhindered digital transactions. To safeguard our democracy, and protect the working and living conditions of our people, we make the following demands: The Federal Government must quickly put in place all measures to ensure that the suffering of the Nigerian people caused by the poor thinking and inefficiencies in the implementation of the Naira redesign exercise are eliminated. Citizens and businesses must have unfettered access to their money – access to cash, ability to undertake unhindered transactions through both non-digital and digital platforms – without further stress to meet their obligations to their families/dependents and businesses to enable them to live with less stress in an environment where citizens are reeling from the effects of contrived fuel scarcity, insecurity of endemic proportions and galloping inflation.

“The principle of separation of powers must be respected and the FG should respect and uphold the pronouncement of the Supreme Court on the old denominations of the Naira that it marked to be phased out as legal tender. It must also, in particular, make the lower denominations of the Naira available for the operations and convenience of citizens in the informal sector and small business operators who, by acts of omission of the FGN and CBN, have become the primary victims of the assumed well-intended Naira redesign exercise. The legitimate anger and concerns of ordinary citizens as the major victims of the ill-prepared and rushed implementation of the anti-people policy, must be respected; their rights to protest must be protected, and their legitimate anger must not be met with repression. In this respect, we condemn the repression of protests, call for its cessation, and for the prosecution of security personnel who have brutalised, shot at, and or harassed citizens in the course of the unfolding protests. However, the right to peaceful assembly and protest should not be an excuse for the destruction of public or private property or the abuse of the fundamental rights of other citizens by protesters.

“We call on the executive branch of government, in particular the presidency and the CBN, to retrace their steps and immediately abide with the extant ruling and pronouncement of the Supreme Court on this matter. We call on the Presidency to uphold the rule of law, and not to take any steps that will further undermine the system of separation of powers between the branches of government. In this respect, we call for anyone who is implicated in disobeying the ruling of the Supreme Court to face appropriate consequences in accordance with our constitution.”