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From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
All Progressives Congress (APC) had told the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami and governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, to honorably tender their resignation for flagrant violation of law.
In the statement signed by the APC National Vice Chairman (North-West), Salihu Moh. Lukman, the ruling party commended the trio of Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara state governors for instituting the case.
They chided the duo for misleading President Buhari into such acts of illegality and abuse of executive powers as pronounced by the Supreme Court.
The North-West chapter of the party noted that: “given the injurious nature of the consequences of the cashless policy of the federal government as was implemented thus far, and the damage of the Supreme Court ruling to the profile of President Muhammadu Buhari, the CBN and AGF must take personal responsibility for this act of illegality by the federal government.”
Titled; ‘Supreme Court invalidates actions of the federal government’ the statement noted: “Leaders and members of APC from North-West received with delight the ruling of the Supreme Court declaring the federal government’s cashless policy as unconstitutional and violation of the fundamental rights of Nigerians as provided under the 1999 Nigerian constitution as amended.
“By this ruling of the Supreme Court as delivered by Justice Emmanuel Akomaye, the old N1,000, N500 and N200 remain legal tender and Nigerians are free to have access to all their monies deposited in Nigerian banks without any form of restrictions as contained in the federal government cashless policy.
“On behalf of our party leaders and members from North-West, we salute our three governors, Nasir Ahmed El-Rufai, Yahaya Bello and Bello Matawalle of Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara states respectively for their courage and initiative to challenge the action of the federal government in the Supreme Court.
“It is a patriotic duty to challenge the policy of government, which unfortunately plunge Nigerians into hardship and unimaginable shock, notwithstanding partisan affiliations. By so doing, our leaders in APC led by Nasir, Yahaya Bello and Matawalle have once again demonstrated superior commitment to democracy.
“It is also unfortunate that President Buhari could be misled into such acts of illegality and abuse of executive powers as pronounced by the Supreme Court. We, and indeed all Nigerians, are grateful to the Supreme Court Justices led by Justice Akomaye for this landmark judicial intervention.
“Given the injurious nature of the consequences of the cashless policy of the federal government as was implemented thus far, and the damage of the Supreme Court ruling to the profile of President Buhari, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami must take personal responsibility for this act of illegality by the federal government.
“In advanced democracies, public offices who commits such acts of illegality voluntarily resigns from their appointments. Therefore, if indeed, the cashless policy of the federal government was supposedly designed to conform with extant legal provisions of the Nigerian federation, now that it turned out in the direct opposite, both the CBN Governor, and AGF, should accept the limitations of both their knowledge of the law and commitment to democracy by resigning from their respective offices forthwith.
“Rule of law is fundamental to democracy and individuals who flagrantly violate the laws or promote acts that breach the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria must not be tolerated.
“We call on Nigerians to take note of the fact that the crusade against the federal government cashless policy was led by APC, not minding the attempt to sensationally politicise it to the benefit of opposition political parties and their candidates in this election season.
“It is gratifying that Nigerians resisted the antics of subversive politicians who wanted to use such crude methods, including inflicting untold hardship and pains on Nigerians to provoke citizens into voting against the APC during the February 25 Presidential and National Assembly elections.
“We commend and salute Nigerians for their faith in our party, APC and determination to support our party and our candidates during the 2023 elections. We are indeed confident that Nigerians across all the 36 states of the federation will reaffirm this confidence during the governorship and States’ Houses of Assembly election on Saturday, March 11, 2023,” the statement read.
