Professor Chidi Odinkalu, a lawyer and human‑rights activist and former chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, says the presidency has not disobeyed the Supreme Court order that the old N200, N500 and N1,000 notes remain legal tender. The Supreme Court affirmed the validity of the old notes on Wednesday, maintaining that the hearing on 8 February, which paused the implementation of the 10 February deadline for the use of the old naira, still subsists. Reactions had followed the Central Bank of Nigeria’s insistence that the 10 February deadline remained, with many calling on President Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) and CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele to obey the apex court.
Speaking on Thursday evening on *The Verdict 2023*, a programme aired on Channels Television, Odinkalu argued that neither the President nor the CBN governor disobeyed the court. He emphasized that the authority over the country’s currency outweighs the matter. “To the best of my knowledge, the Supreme Court has not said what people are meaning and presenting as if it had,” he said. “That is not a policy of the court; it would be a misplacement of the court’s capabilities and assets to reach that conclusion.” He suggested that the court’s intention was simply to preserve the status quo ante until the case is heard—i.e., the situation that existed before the litigation began.
Odinkalu explained that the “status quo ante” was the Central Bank circular specifying when the old notes should cease to be legal tender. He suspects this is the advice the President received and maintains that the President has not breached any law. By the same logic, the President’s decision to recirculate the old N200 notes does not contravene the law, because a currency system cannot be created or altered by a court.
The former NHRC chairman also warned that actions and orders from state governors that counter the President’s policy amount to treason. “The core of a government’s credibility, nationally and internationally, rests on three things: defence and security, foreign affairs, and currency,” he said. “President Buhari is defending the last of these, and he is well within his rights to do so.” He added, “It is improper for state governors to issue orders that countermand the President on a matter the central government cannot negotiate—money and currency. What the governors are doing verges on treason; you cannot tell a President to yield his authority over currency systems. That is not negotiable.”
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