Attorney General of Ekiti averred that the directive of the Federal Government on the naira redesign had also created palpable anxiety among the citizens of Ekiti.
By Jeffrey Agbo
Ekiti State Government has become the latest state to sue the Federal Government over its naira redesign policy and the deadline the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) set for swapping old notes for new ones.
Governor Biodun Oyebanji’s Special Adviser on Media, Yinka Oyebode, in a statement on Sunday said the state applied to be joined as a co-plaintiff in the suit at the Supreme Court.
According to Oyebode, the application for joinder was filed on Friday at the Supreme Court by the Ekiti Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Dayo Apata (SAN), seeking three reliefs.
The statement said the suit, with the number SC/CV/162/2023, had Attorneys General of Kaduna State, Kogi State and Zamfara State as plaintiffs, while the Attorney General of the Federation is the defendant.
The reliefs being sought by the Attorney General of Ekiti included leave of the court to join the applicants as a co-plaintiff.
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Some of the grounds for 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 State 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 determining 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.