Falana vows to sue CBN over floating of Naira, says it’s illegal

Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN) on Friday morning said he was planning to sue the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) over the recent floating of the country’s currency, naira.

Mr Falana said this on a Channels TV live programme which was monitored by SaharaReporters, claiming that the decision of the apex court to allow commercial banks and dealers in the forex market to sell forex freely at market-determined rates was illegal.

The Senior Advocate of Nigeria added that the apex court is statutorily bound to ensure the naira value is maintained against other currencies in the international market.

Falana also blamed the current economic challenges facing the country on too much usage of the US dollar by the government and the residents, an act he described as being in contravention of the Central Bank of Nigeria

(CBN) ACT.

He said, “I’ve vowed to sue the Central Bank of Nigeria at the Federal High Court because section 16 of the Central Bank Act provides, as imposed a duty on the Central Bank, to fix and determine the rate of the Naira, vis a vis other currency. So there is no provision for floating the naira, there is no provision.

"It is illegal to say the value of Naira will be determined by market forces. That is not there in the law. Section 20 of the Central Bank Act provides that the only legal tender in Nigeria shall be, Section 20(1), a currency note issued by the central bank only the naira.

“Section 20(5) provides anybody who spends any other currency in Nigeria without the approval of the Central Bank as committed an offence and shall be prosecuted. The penalty is six months imprisonment. So ask yourself, why does a Nigerian government allow properties to be sold in Dollars, Rents to be collected in Dollars, Some school fees to be paid in Dollars and everybody is looking for dollars.”

Speaking further on the N5 billion grant given to each of the 36 states of the federation for the procurement of grains as well as five trucks of rice to each state as palliatives to cushion the effect of fuel subsidy removal, Mr Falana described it as a temporary measure.

He said, “There are temporary measures. Some of them are quite diversionary and the people in the government have not addressed the root of the crisis which is the dollarisation of the economy.

"Whatever palliatives that are announced will be eaten up by the dollarisation of the economy which we are not in control of. As long as these guys in government are not prepared to strengthen the naira, to make naira the only legal tender in Nigeria. We are not going to go far. I am speaking from a legal perspective."