The Supreme Court is hearing a case involving the Naira redesign policy and the CBN’s deadline for replacing old notes with new ones.
The Ekiti State Government has asked to be added as a co-plaintiff.
This was stated in a statement made available to newsmen in Ado-Ekiti on Sunday by Yinka Oyebode, the Special Advisor to Governor Biodun Oyebanji on Media.
He claims that Mr. Dayo Apata, SAN, the Ekiti Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, filed an application for joinder on Friday at the Supreme Court, requesting three reliefs.
According to the statement, the Attorney General of the Federation was the defendant in the case, which has the case number SC/CV/162/2023, and the Attorneys General of Kaduna State, Kogi State, and Zamfara State were the plaintiffs.
The reliefs being sought by the Attorney General of Ekiti included leave of the court to join the applicants as a co-plaintiff
Some of the grounds of the application included acute shortage in the supply of Naira notes in the state since the announcement of the policy by the Federal Government through the CBN.
The applicant, Ekiti Government, declared that the directive of the Federal Government had affected the livelihood and inflicted excruciating pain and hardship on all Nigerians, including citizens of the state.
The state government equally averred that the directive of the Federal Government had adversely affected the revenue, levies and taxes accruable to the coffers of Ekiti Government as economic activities in the state were now paralysed.
He further averred that the directive of the Federal Government on the Naira redesign had also created palpable anxiety among the citizens of Ekiti.
Another ground was that Ekiti, as a federating state of Nigeria, therefore, had interest in the determination of the Originating Summons in the suit, earlier filed by the three states in the federation.
Ekiti Government said having common interest as other plaintiffs, and also in the outcome of the suit, sought the leave of the court to be joined as a co-plaintiff in order to be bound by the outcome of the suit.
It stated that no injustice or embarrassment would be occasioned to any of the parties on record, if joined, as a co-plaintiff to ventilate the grievances of Ekiti.
“The sole issue formulated for determination is whether the applicant has made a case for the court to favourably consider the application.”
“This was supported by an argument that the court had always been of position that anyone whose presence is crucial and fundamental to a suit must be made a party to the proceedings.”
