Femi Falana, SAN, a human rights lawyer, has written to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) demanding information on the amount of new naira notes distributed to commercial banks.
Falana also demanded that the apex bank provide a list of customers who may have withdrawn more than the N100,000 sum approved by the CBN in the letter dated February 16, 2023.
Old N200, N500 and N1,000 notes have remained scarce since the naira swap policy came in place but the CBN has maintained that it printed enough new notes, with the CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele blaming politicians of hoarding the new notes.
However, in a letter from Falana Chambers signed by Femi Adedeji, ESQ, the senior lawyer demanded that the apex bank provide details on how the new notes were distributed to commercial banks, threatening to proceed to court should the CBN fail to provide the information in seven days.
The letter read, “Our attention has been drawn to your statement wherein you claimed that some unnamed politicians have mopped up the new Naira notes made available to all commercial banks by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
“We are compelled to request you to furnish us with information concerning the amount of the designed notes of N200, N500 and N1,000 denominations made available to each commercial bank by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
“Furthermore, we also request you to furnish us with the list of customers of the commercial banks who collected more than N100,000 approved by you from the commercial banks.
“As this request is made pursuant to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2011, you are required to accede to our request within 7 days of the receipt of this letter.
“TAKE NOTICE that if you fail or refuse to furnish us with the requested information before the deadline of 7 days we shall not hesitate to pray the Federal High Court to compel you to accede to our request.”