Fashola disagrees with Keyamo, says Buhari’s action not contempt of S’Court
Babatunde Raji, Nigeria’s Minister of Works and Housing, has disagreed with his counterpart, Festus Keyamo, the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, who faulted President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive, that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) should return the old N200 into circulation for 60 days and banning the old N500 and N1,000 notes as against the Supreme Court’s order to recirculate all the old notes until a decision was made.
READ ALSO: BREAKING: Buhari orders return of old N200 note into circulation
According to Keyamo, the President’s decision was made based on the wrong advice he received, and he would have advised him to comply with the Supreme Court’s order.
He said, “All the old notes should circulate side by side with the new notes for now because that is the order of the Supreme Court.”
However, Fashola, who is also a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, has disagreed with his colleague, stating that the President’s directive was not a direct affront to the Supreme Court.
He explained that the President decided to ease the hardships that Nigerians were facing due to the policy.
In Fashola’s words, “The principle about respecting and awaiting the outcome of a court decision sometimes has been stretched. If I shut the door on your finger, and you went to court to say that the court should direct me to remove or open the door, do I say let’s wait for the outcome of the court decision when you are in pain, and people are in pain?”
He further stated, “Whatever interventions the President sought to make were interventions in response to the very palpable pain, and I think he said that much in his speech about the unintended consequences of the policy.”
Recall that prior to President Buhari’s directive some governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC) – Nasir El-Rufai, Abdullahi Ganduje, Dapo Abiodun, Rotimi Akeredolu and Babajide Sanwo-Olu were not on the same page with the president hence, following the order of the Supreme Court where it had asked the CBN to hold on to the February 10 deadline until a decision has been reached.
