By G9ija

Those celebrating victory over the Supreme Court’s ruling, adjourning the enforcement of the stripping of the redesigned Naira notes of legal tender status, should think again.

Those who know have come out to explain that the apex court cannot be a primary court and those who acted the drama would have done so to sooth the nerves of cronies.

A legal luminary, Mike Ozekhome, has explained that the order of the Supreme Court, restraining the Federal Government, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and all other actors in the theatre of naira redesign, was made to preserve the subject-matter for proper legal consideration and dispensation of justice.

He offered the explanation in a Channels Television programme, monitored by Biztellers, in Lagos on Wednesday.

According to him, the apex court gave the judgement so as to prevent the subject matter of the suit from being truncated. The Supreme Court merely created a window for the hearing of the matter for proper judicial interpretation and intervention.

Ozekhome said, “The Supreme Court has not decided the matter. All it has done is to fall back to a decision like Kotoye vs CBN, that in matters of extreme urgency, you can grant an interim order, even if it be an ex-parte, to prevent the subject matter of the suit being truncated.

“If, for example, the Supreme Court, did not make that order, and the only order existing is that of the High Court, it means that the CBN, by 10th of this month, will stop the use of all old notes.

“But what the Supreme Court has said is, ‘Just wait, let us listen to you people,’ not that it has decided that Zamfara, Kogi and Kaduna states have any valid case that is actionable because the action is already being challenged with a preliminary objection.

“It is another way of saying, ‘Let us first drive away the fox before we blame the fowl for wandering too far into the forest’.”

Elucidating on why this had to be the case, he explained that other lower courts could not interfere when decisions were being debated at the apex court.

“Notwithstanding the fact that a high court or Federal High Court had granted an order telling the CBN, ‘You can stop this naira swap policy on the 10th of February as you have decided to do’, the Supreme Court today said, ‘Hello? Don’t do that! Allow it to continue. Come back on the 15th of February and let us hear you people’,” he added.