New Naira: Buhari Disobeyed Supreme Court On Wrong Advice – Keyamo

The Spokesperson for the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council, Festus Keyamo, SAN, has said President Muhammadu Buhari was wrongly advised to disobey the Supreme Court.

Concise News reported that the Supreme Court had ordered that all old naira notes remain legal tender until it decides otherwise on February 22.

However, Buhari issued a national broadcast declaring only N200 as legal tender, which rendered useless the N500 and N1,000 denomination of the old notes.

Reacting, Keyamo who appeared on Channels on Friday night, said, “My view is that the President acted honestly without intention to slight the Supreme Court. But he may have acted on wrong advice. I did not give that advice; it is not my responsibility. I don’t know who gave that advice. I want to say this openly because tomorrow, people will ask me where I stood at this time,” he said

The Minister of State for Labour stated that President Buhari’s speech acknowledged that there were certain matters in court and that the President believed he was playing safe by purportedly intervening to quell the growing tension across the country.

“He thought he was playing safe by saying, ‘Before you decide this matter in court, may I just provide some middle ground so that country burning, there are riots everywhere, so let me just try and provide some succour to the people, whilst acknowledging the matters are in court.

Now, if I were to advise him, I would have advised differently. I did not advise him. It’s not my responsibility; I don’t know who.”

Asked what his counsel to the President would have been, Keyamo said it would be for him to “comply strictly with the terms of the order of the Supreme Court, [which is that] all the old notes should circulate for now side by side with the new notes because that is the order of the Supreme Court.”

He added that by virtue of the constitution, “all authorities in Nigeria must obey the orders of the Supreme Court, “adding that anything to the contrary is “a descent to anarchy.”