The Supreme Court's judgment authorizing the use of old N1,000, N500, and N200 notes as legal money for a period of 10 months has been partially implemented by the country's Deposit Money Banks.
The old naira notes shall be permitted to circulate alongside the new ones until December 31, 2023, the Supreme Court said last week.
The Federal Government's strategy of naira redesign, according to the court, was in violation of the 1999 Constitution.
Even though the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation remained silent on the topic, commercial banks had started to partially abide with the directive.
Many bank branches in Lagos, Abuja, and other significant cities were visited by our correspondents, who discovered that some banks had started to follow the Supreme Court's decision.
Regarding the contentious naira redesign policy, the CBN and the AGF office had previously defied Supreme Court decisions.
Among other things, the CBN's deadline of February 10 for the phase-out of the old naira notes was invalidated by the Supreme Court on February 8, 2023.
But, the CBN and the AGF office disregarded the order.
Some commercial banks started paying their customers with the old notes on Monday, despite the CBN and AGF office being unable to make a decision about the most recent Supreme Court order.
Customers were given the outdated N1000 and N500 notes on Monday at a number of Gtbank locations in Lagos and Abuja, according to findings. Moreover, numerous United Bank for Africa locations still gave out old N1000 and N500 notes to consumers.
Some commercial banks, on the other hand, reportedly refused to pay their clients because they were expecting a CBN order on the subject.
"CBN has not yet issued a clear official directive, but we must move forward because customers are suffering. Additionally, the Supreme Court has made a ruling on it,'' a senior executive of a tier-1 bank said to The Reporter under the condition of anonymity. Officials from a number of institutions, including Access Bank, Polaris Bank, and FCMB, claimed they were still awaiting the CBN's directive on the subject.
In the meantime, all attempts to get the CBN to comment on the Supreme Court decision failed because Dr. Isa Abdulmumin, the CBN's acting director of corporate communications, declined to do so.