 Welcome back, it's the run-up on PlusCB Africa. In apparent reaction to public unease over the federal government's long silence and delayed response to the March 3 Supreme Court ruling on the currency redesign, the presidency yesterday said the CBN did not need a further directive from the president, Mohamed Buhari, to comply with the apex court's order. Well joining us to discuss this is Vincent Esyan, he's a legal practitioner. Hello Vincent. Yeah, good morning Mohamed. Good morning. Yes, and along the line in the course of this discussion, we hope to be joined by Tungi Andrews, who is an economist, so that we'll be able to balance this up. However, as we wait for Tungi to join us, Vincent, well, I'm going to quote from and I'm going to take a next up from a statement issued yesterday by the acting director of corporate communications, Issa Abdul-Mumin, that's of the central bank of Nigeria, so that we can begin to dissect this piece by piece. Well the statement, part of it read, in compliance with established tradition of obedience to court orders and sustenance of the rule of law principle that characterised the government of President Major General Mohamed Buhari retired and by extension the operations of the central bank of Nigeria as a regulator, deposit money banks operating in Nigeria have been directed to comply with the Supreme Court ruling of March 3rd, 2023. So I'm going to start Vincent by asking you just how obedient has the CBN been to court orders in this administration? In this administration, I think it's come up basically in regards to the currency exchange programme. It's been an unfortunate scenario that has happened, especially in view of a hardship that has been wrought in innocent citizens, very, very many pathetic stories have happened and I've seen, thankfully that has come to an end by that statement by the CBN. And that statement actually was a follow-up statement that came from the media advice of the President that said that the CBN doesn't need further directives because the President is well known for his obedience to court orders, legitimate court orders and court orders that are not disputed because we don't have to make a distinction between a court order and a period that is a period, but once the Supreme Court makes a ruling and that's the final, that's the apex court in our jurisdiction, there's actually no need for anybody to second guess what the step of the President would be. And that's what the statement of the President said, so clearly maybe the CBN was meeting for some directives, I don't think that was necessary, and the President came out to clarify that the CBN has complied. Thankfully, the compliance, that statement was followed by steps to ensure that we start to ease up this trope of the court order that has to involve these court orders. Well, Justice, according to a judgment delivered by Justice Emmanuel Agim, the President did breach the Constitution in the manner he issued the directives for the Naira notes. Please comment on this. Well, Amaya, I saw that aspect of a judgment and there's some element in that judgment that you could subscribe to, because clearly the initial ruling of the Supreme Court on the 8th was that the old and new notes in the nation should be allowed to run until the end of the termination of the suit before it, so there was a decision by the President to say that they allowed the 200 notes and they didn't really mention the other notes, so maybe there wasn't full compliance with the reserved ruling of the Supreme Court in that, but thankfully that would correct it. All right, well, still staying with statements from the Justice Emmanuel Agim, because this is something that borders on obedience to the judiciary, you know, and the deepening of our democracy, and so in further statements from this same Justice, I'm going to quote, the rule of law upon which democratic governance is founded becomes illusionary if the President of the country or any authority or person refuses to obey the orders of the court, the disobedience of the orders of courts by the President in a constitutional democracy as ours is a sign of the failure of the Constitution, and that democratic governance has become a mere pretension, and it's now replaced by autocracy or dictatorship. How do we deepen our democracy if the Apex Court is now being seen as a toothless bulldog? Well, I would really say that we have got to that point. Things, their processes to even implement new rules and governments as their processes. I'd like to say that this process I've come to for sure now, the government has complied fully with the ruling of the Supreme Court. Ten days after. The ruling by the Justice made some strong statements and to reinforce the fact that the judiciary should be supreme, the law should be supreme, the pressure should be supreme, and that's the foundation of the democracy. So I'm happy that the President and the CBN have fallen in line with the judgment of Supreme Court. I think that we should move forward from there, probably learn from his experience, and ensure that this only strengthens our democracy. I don't think there's any need to keep playing, to be able to help. I think what we need to do is ensure that we move to a situation where we start to ameliorate the pains that have been brought upon our citizens by this policy. This is how it goes so pains, in spite of what I think have been nobody tensions, and maybe there's some gains as well, but you know at the end of the day I think the government is about the best people, so hopefully we can get to that stage. Yeah, you're saying move on from there, but you see ordinary Nigerians like us who are not lawyers like you, we do get worried when it does appear. Even the NBA has spoken and warned, you know, matter of fact, the NBA president, Yakubu Mikheil SA, spoke on this matter, and he warned that the bar would resist any action undermining the rule of law, Constitution, and democracy in the country. Now this delay has also led to labor, the organized labor, threatening and giving the federal government seven days ultimately to fix all of this mess caused by this narrow redesign. So this is a very serious issue. Would borders on our Constitution and our democracy? Yeah, these are serious issues. I mean the NBA spoke to the Labor Committee, and we definitely didn't want to finish off the second elections and head into a national strike, but thankfully all of this have been converted. To me, I think our democracy still has a call that we have to look back on our land for my experiences, and this is just one of them. But the most important thing is that at the end of the day, the Constitution has been respected, the authority of Supreme Court, which is the apex court, and the final arbiter within our judicial system has been consolidated, and the executive has ensured that there will be full compliance with the rule of Supreme Court. And this is actually a precedent that will be laid for future governments to understand. The delay is unfortunate, the non-immediate compliance is unfortunate, but I think where we are now is that there will be full compliance in effect by the statement by the CBA. I think we should do both, and that's my advice. Alright, some would say that the purpose for all of this narrow redesigned policy may have been defeated, because the politicians did have access to this money from what we saw. They had access to this money. Nigerians suffered, the unbanked Nigerians suffered. Those who do not have access to the internet, or who could not use the internet to transact with the banks, they all suffered. We saw all of it on social media, and even as you went round the street yourself, you saw Nigerians suffering from all of this. So it will look like the purpose has been defeated. Well, it's for CBA to define what the exact purpose of what policy was. CBA is usually strictly to confine itself to monetary policy, and clearly the management of currency is one of the areas that forward the amount of monetary policy. So they actually have the authority to regulate monetary policy, currency, and this is one of the things. But a lot of things came out in the course of this that seemed to indicate that they were stepping beyond their core focus, not their mandate, their focus. Because you can use currency to control a lot of things, but clearly the most important thing is inflation, the most important thing is public exchange, to mitigate money supply deals with all this. And they have to look at how much of that has been achieved by this policy. Because unfortunately, I think some initial preparations were not made, because clearly there is a push to move Nigeria towards cashless, and which I support, I totally agree, but I think the infrastructure to move the number of people and the volume was not there in the first place. And that's why you found that even the digital transactions went on track. The capacity must be ready. So I think CBN needs to look back. The policy itself is not bad, but the methodology of implementing the policy has to be looked at again. And this six months actually gives the CBN, the policy has not been scrapped. I mean, the new networks are still valid, they've already been issued. So what the CBN has done is done, which everybody has done. And there's even seen more time, and well, the larger we're doing is to implement this policy. And hopefully they'll take advantage of it, and cure some of the fears and concerns that we've had that there were some other motives, which also affected the perception of the policy, and the perception of the policy itself, which was not necessary in my view. Yeah, it actually has thrown up so many things, which is the fact that we have so many of our people still on banked in the villages, you know, in the rural areas. Also, it did throw up the fact that the digital payment solutions still has lots of challenges that the banks you look into. Clearly, clearly. But for me, the key thing is also that challenge is also an opportunity. So I'm expecting the fintech sector in Nigeria, which is very dynamic, to take advantage of that opportunity. It's an opportunity, and it's something that I'm sure will happen almost simultaneously. I think that the fintech sector should step into that, to that, and try to feel as based, expand infrastructure, and then we'll get there. You know, one of the things that happened that I expected to have been done was severe license to CS and companies as we have the movement is already been done. But those things haven't been deepened before this policy came in. So I think the fintech sector needs to expand that digital space, because a lot of Nigerians are actually on the internet, internet penetration has actually been deepened all over the country. But the culture is also the second part. You don't judge my good people from cash to cashless. We are assessing the cultural factor. How much of preparation did you make for people like you said, who are population, who are used to cash to market women? That's maybe the other stroke, really. And even transportation systems. Why are we generally paying cash to get our transportation and our buses? That's not necessary. So I mean, there's a few steps that need to have been done before this policy was rolled out. We're not done. And that's why we had the choke. People can't get to work because they can't get on the bus and they don't have cash to pay. And they have money, they have money in their accounts, but they don't just have it in their hands. So it's something that CBN needs to go back and reflect upon. Like I said, the policy itself is a good one. But it's something that needs to be done with a lot of deep thinking and not so that people don't have the impression that you're trying to achieve some kind of agenda. Yeah, the CBN no doubt has its work cut out for it. One of the things that this also threw up is the issue of how how much monitoring goes on in the banking sector? How much of a grip does the CBN have on the commercial banks? Because we did see at the initial phase of all of these, the DSS broke into well, got into some banks and saw that they were holding money. They were holding money that the CBN supposedly had given for them to disperse to Nigerians. Yeah, I think the CBN is the regulatory system. I don't think there's any doubt about that. The stuff is which is spoken to, whenever you have scarcity, they may have scarcity in adequate supply of the product, then you start to have this kind of scenarios imagine, because too many people are trying to choose. First of all, I don't think adequate numbers of the new currency were pushed into the money supply system and that's pretty disgusting. And that case, and I've been trained to, we are taking the banks, not just the banks, even the, the one, the POS system, which had come into play and had been very helpful. So the thing is, the thing is, CBN is to look at the whole structure of banks, not just the banks, because how many people can go, I can tell you that I have a local government in my state with a problem that doesn't have a bank, you know, so I mean, there are many local governments that don't have banks. So it's not just the banking system, it's a whole financial system. And again, you have to go to digital banking. I just opened an account for the bank. I don't have to mention today. I didn't step into the bank. They said to me, the account will pay forms and I've paid it online and the account is open. So we need to start to deepen that kind of system. And of course, there are online banks in Nigeria. So what we need to do is ensure that we deepen that kind of infrastructure. If you know there is not adequate supply of any product, any product, talk less of cash. We're going to create a scenario where people are going to take advantage because I'm just casting, I'm just for people who have it. I can look at people who don't have it, that's what's happening. All right. Let's still go back to the fact that we have a large number of our people on bank and how the CBN would have to go about getting them to adopt to digital banking. Don't forget that most of these people who are on bank are also not literally enough. How do you think the CBN can achieve this? It's like we have a peculiar situation here. I still think that the phone networks, and I still go back to the fact that the license, most of the GSM companies, to provide money banking services. And most, actually I think the penetration of the phone penetration in Nigeria is pretty is considerably maybe like 60, 70 percent. Not everybody needs a bank account. Children are under the age of 18 or 70. We can have children accounts, but they're not actively banked. So for the population that is economically active, I think that our phone penetration is good enough. So we can leverage on the penetration of our GSM networks on that. We can write on that and then take, like it is, there's a culture for that, for the people who still want to hold the money in their hand. There's a culture thing. You shouldn't lose that. You shouldn't lose track of that. So you need to make a delicate effort to allow people to understand that the money in your account or your digital money is still their money and can serve the same purpose as the money in your hand. And it's a culture thing. And there was no attempt to try and reach people in their languages, in different looks and crannies of the country. No attempt at all. And you just expect people to go into a system that they're not culturally in tune with. You know, I see how people, even before this policy came, I think have people who you want to make transfers to and they don't want it. You know, most people want to do is go to ATM and collect money. So I think that the cultural aspect, the education has to be pushed in as well. And that's a job of CBN. They need to do that before we actually get to the point where we can start to compare. But truly, again, all of the things they have to do is that they have to look at the billions of circulation. They won't have their own content. Cash handling is expensive. So what are the options for them? Do we need to coin some of our bills? You know, I mean, the only country that doesn't use coins in modern that have been to around. So I mean, those are the other options that they should look about. If they're concerned about the cost, the cost of cash, then they have to look at those options so that they stay away from all thoughts of saying you don't want to use money for buying boats. That's not the job of CBN. CBN has the problem. That's the business going there. Even when you talk about kidnapping and all that, that's not the job of the police and the security services. So what you need to do is focus on core monetary policy functions and what's to get it right between the three sectors that you're concerned about. It would appear that you're sharing the opinions of some who argue that Godwin Amir Filet, the CBN governor, does not have an idea of how the economy should run. No, I wouldn't say so. I mean, I think that, I think that the CBN governor clearly has become very controversial. There were some areas in which I brought into strategy. Clearly, the options are absolutely rapid increase in money supply. People say printing money and then his intervention, CBN-led interventions in many sectors of the economy, which have been more direct than usual. But I actually support some of these interventions that have been made to support production, especially in the agricultural sector, which see that in the laws that have been pushed down in the agricultural sector. And they've had some impact in terms of agricultural production. So I support that. There are some that are very radical, like CBN getting leading the banks, getting involved in movies, national theater being done, you know. CBN, that's radical. But you know, provided it is supporting production of goods and doing the economy, well, there's nothing wrong with that, you know. But I don't, I wouldn't say it doesn't have an idea. Clearly, it's been CBN governor for two times now. One of the few to actually last this month. I don't think it doesn't have an idea. But, you know, the office does come with some pressure. So I don't know what happened. I'm not there. I don't know what he's feeling. But clearly, in years, he's been compared with this CBN, we need to think of this particular policy. Hopefully, we'll do that until getting right. Again, he needs to ensure that he's working in sync with the fiscal authorities. I think sometimes he was played in that space as well. I feel it's still time. But anyway, the new government is coming in hopefully soon. They will be in charge of this. It's still the run up on plus TV Africa. And we're taking a look at the narrow redesign policy and the fact that the CBN governor has finally vouched to pressure and has given directives, you know, ordering the commercial banks to allow the use of the old notes and that the old notes remain legal tender, just as pronounced by the apex bank. And I have Vincent Aisian, a legal practitioner with me, taking a look at this. Vincent. Vincent. Yeah, man. All right. Yeah. So it's a good thing that the CBN has finally vouched to pressure 10 days after the judgment by the CBN and 10 days after Nigerians have been in the limbo in the dark wondering what next? What next? Should we use this money? Should we not use this money? The president has not spoken. The CBN has not spoken. So finally, finally, all those doubts put to rest. But we have to also project and look forward to the future because I'm looking at January 2024 at this point and wondering by the time this judgment which has said that these old notes remain legal tender to the 31st of this year. What happens in January of 2024? How confident will Nigerians be that when we get to that, we'll not be back, history will not repeat itself? Well, like I said, six months is not so long, it's not such a long time. But I think there's some things that need to be done. I keep emphasizing the cultural aspect of it and the social aspect. We learn about education, these people. We have agencies in Nigerian orientation agency. Push this information out there, you know, that will be slowly and certainly migrating to cashness. So let's have that. CBNC has an element of control. You know what I mean? And I'm saying it because it depends again. They have the power to control the money supply and to tell me the quantum of money that's in the system. So even in a situation where there will be judgment. So what I'm saying is that the move towards cashness is a certainty. In six months, what happens? In six months, they could very well decide that by then the old currency may continue to run. They have the mechanism to slowly take it out. Which is what a lot of advocates, it was a sudden shock. It was a sudden shock treatment that actually aggravated, what is the point where we are in terms of the payings that have been inflicted. So what can be done by January is again, hopefully a new year official is coming to place, maybe with a new year, they have to factor that as well that they will have their own policies and that's also kind of my factor. So we have our own programs and are fortunate to deal with this and just let me have a positive impact on the money supply system. But for now, in obedience to CBR ruling, we should just ensure that the old and new currencies continue to run concurrent so that we can leave this trope. Because again, that education is important. But we find out that a lot of people were just on their own refusing to take the old currencies. And so that's where education needs to be. How many people in that circular that was on the internet? How many of the people in the rural communities who are trading, who are buying out cattle and cow and culture trades? We don't see that circular. It's available to you and me. So let this be pushed down to different segments of society that this is a new policy. And that will take some time, but hopefully that's where things are submerged between the midget. And sharing that this new circular, new position of the bank, get any trades to all the different sectors of the economy so that we can leave this trope home. Because really it's killing the economy in many ways. The additional cost of just getting money. Naira, now you're not dealing with foreign currency, Naira. The additional cost of getting Naira is just a necessary and it's really available. Yeah, the additional cost of getting Naira. I mean Nigeria saw a lot this period. Having to buy the Naira with Naira. We also saw goods wasting at the major markets because no transportation, there was no mobilization. A lot of things just went wrong with this whole thing because of the way it was implemented. And as you have said, and most Nigerians, well some Nigerians do agree with you, that this is a fantastic policy. It's just the implementation. The implementation is the problem. Now we are wondering, you know because the CVN knows that mopped up a lot of money this time around. And no one knows, while the CVN is in the position to tell us how much of the money is mopped up will be released into the economy. We also saw lots of monies messed up, bags of monies stashed that were destroyed, expired so to speak. We saw videos that just made you wonder what is wrong with Nigerians. Well some Nigerians, why would people pile up such huge amount of money and allow them to waste when they have poor people around them? Well clearly there's illicit money, there's illicit money and that's, it's never economy. Another point of this policy that people, people don't understand is that there's actually black money, it's counterfeiting. And counterfeiting has even started of the new currency. And people do, there's no clear figure on the volume of counterfeit currency in the economy and counterfeit currency also adds to inflation. So the policy for me, one of the winning points of that policy would have been that counterfeiting currency counterfeit would have been counterfeit because some were practically printing money in this country. So again hopefully all these monies like talked about, the one that was in bags and all that new combat system, they're not in, they're not in good condition anywhere and if you turn them in and again civil does have the power to regulate how much is going to put back. Just clearly they have an intent, they are determined, and that was a statement, they are determined to ensure that we move towards less cash. It's just that they need to ensure in conjunction with the banks, in conjunction with the FinTech committee, ensure that the infrastructure is there to accommodate the people who are going to move. Already there has been a 40 something percent increase in digital transactions. That should not reduce in my view because we've borne a lot of pain. So there must be some gain from this policy. That's what I'm saying. So that should not reduce as a matter of fact that should grow. But again, we need to promote more people on that and that takes education, that takes penetration messaging. The National Orientation Agency would definitely need to work with the CBN to send a message. We didn't see them, we didn't see them throughout this. So that's, that's one of the most, that's some of the things that need to be done. That's why I say, and I don't actually blame them because we see that CBN executed this policy in some, you know, they didn't carry anybody. The finance minister didn't even know about it, you know, which is. Yeah, at the beginning she did say she was not aware. So, so, you, you, you, you how can they, how can they, how can you carry them along when you don't, you don't do the strict groundwork. So I think that that's what CBN is to do. I mean, we're not running a food economy. I mean, it's not going to be kept secret. It's money anyway. What about monetary policy? You have to bring it up because people who run the economy. So I think that unless there's a different agenda, which a lot of people subscribe to work, that can work anyway. They need to get people involved, get people buying this policy. It's not a wrong policy. It's just an implementation of the policy that, that, that matters to where we are. All right. One of the things the challenge is that these threw up was the issue. Well, you mentioned that earlier, the challenge of the digital payment solutions. And so I want to ask you, what legal redress do Nigerians have? Nigerians whose transactions failed, but did not get the necessary reversal of such payments that failed in real time. And some still, as we speak, weeks after their transactions failed, they still did not get their monies reversed to them. What legal redress do they have? No, clearly, clearly, that's legally a possible right. It's your money. It's your money. If you, if you, if you, if you put your money in a bank, you are trying to get it. If you, if you transfer money to somebody and the money doesn't through the banking platform and the money doesn't lever and it's not at the other end and it's not at your end. I mean, what is something that you can enforce? What is it? What happened was that, and I have a lot of situations with these that I'm dealing with right now, I have people who have issues with banks. But the first point is that because of the way the policy was implemented, a lot of people couldn't even get into the bank. The banks, the banks itself were overstretched. I mean, banks kind of were trying to control it, people were trying to get in because everybody was in the bank at the same time. So I mean, that, those kind of, those kind of issues now went to the background, you know, but we can't even get to the customer, customer services. You know, we tried with the customer service, but those are customer service issues. So I think that the policy itself about boarding the banks stressed their capacity to deal with these issues. Hopefully, as the ease of, then these issues can be resolved. And where, where people have had, have money missing, they come soon. I have a case that I'm actually dealing with one of my, one of my staff who, whose money was withdrawn, ATM issues and all that, but the point is that you can't even get it to the bank. In the first place, but the banks are overstretched. So hopefully, we will ease of the trope hold on the, on the financial system of what people can resolve these issues. It's, like again, it's the money that digital, the money may be hanging. This, this, this, this, this infrastructure itself wasn't ready to accommodate the volume of transactions that came on board at the same time. So you found out that most times, um, transactions, and I, I advise people that through your transactions, later in the evening, later in the night, that's when the traffic is less. It's, it's, it's a simple, it's a simple thinking, you know, if you build a, if you build an infrastructure for the other individual infrastructure, and then all of a sudden, how many millions of people get on board? They don't have a problem. And that's what happened. Give us more information again, if you will, about the rights of bank customers with regards to the reversal of their money. There is supposed to be a 24-hour time within which their money should have gotten back to them, right? Yes, that's what they say, but there are some instances, I, I have one in two today and I haven't had a reversal. I just can't afford to go to the bank because I can't afford to go in there and I see the whole banking all crowded and I'm trying to explain what happened to my, I think it was about $15,000 or something. So what I'm saying is that they tell you, and ordinarily that's what happens with, with reverses. Now, well, if it doesn't reverse, then the banks have a mechanism in which they deal within the interbanking system to, and of course, if it doesn't get back to you, you can sue. Consume legally, I, I have to say, even my daughter has a situation with the bank as well. So these are, first of all, because your money cannot get lost in the bank. Your money inside the bank is not supposed to get lost. That's why you take it there. Or why would you keep, you will keep it at home? Once your money is in the bank, it's supposed to be secure. And so anything that happens while your money is within the banking system, the liabilities of the bank. So you can sue. You can sue. Nigerians should have it. You can sue. I'm sure many Nigerians who didn't know will be very happy to hear that they can sue. You can sue your bank for not reversing your money that was supposed to have been reversed as a result of failed transactions. Vincent Acien, thank you so much for your time and insights on this very issue that every Nigerian is very concerned about. So finally, the confusion over the legality of the old Naira notes is over. Let's hope that this week, before this week ends, that things would have normalized. Your final words before we go. I think it's going to take time. It's still, it's still, it's still the call of CBN on how quickly and clearly they also have their own mechanisms on how much of the old Naira is going to release back into the system. And they should currently be printing the windows as well. Because I don't think we're going to have a reversal on that policy. I would actually, that way to advise, focus me on the lower bills. That's something that we don't. But as for the fact that the current is a legal tender, that has been determined by the Supreme Court. All the conferences, 200, 500 and 1000 remain legal tender. And the CBN has the capacity and has the instruments to determine how they manage money supply. But they should do it in such a way that we, we are out of the chokehold with the economy have the puts for the last one month. That's really unfortunate. And a lot of people are really soft-hearted. Because the CBN, I have to say this really, because there was a man who told a story about his daughter who was involved in the unfortunate train, train bus accident in Lagos. Oh my God, no. And he said that you really know why his daughter was on that bus because she didn't have cash. Oh my goodness. Yeah, I have to say this more and it got to me as to my eyes. And this, unfortunately this policy reversal has probably come too late for him. Just yesterday I heard of someone who trekked to work because he didn't have cash for transportation. And by the time he got to the office, he slumped and died. Yeah, I have people with, I do with that all the time. But the case of that man, I had to see it because then he said that's it. That the reason why she was on the bus was she didn't have cash. So she took a staff course, which probably should be safe. That's what happened. Very sad. Very sad. Oh Vincent Ecien, thank you again for your time. Thank you. All right. Many thanks for watching. I am Maureen Menon-Wizzigie. Do have a good day.