A Former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Joseph B. Daudu SAN has countered critics of President Buhari’s intervention in the Naira swap crisis which has plagued the nation in the last few weeks.
President Muhammadu Buhari is a nationwide broadcast this morning had issued new directives for the phasing out of the old notes, even as a Supreme Court order on the matter still stands.
The conflict had sparked outrage from a section of the legal profession, with many describing the President’s actions as contemptuous and disrespectful to the Apex Court’s jurisdiction.
However, in his reaction, the Former Bar President argued that the President’s intervention was necessary to prevent chaos and anarchy in the country.
In a post made on his Facebook wall, he wrote, “The President’s speech to the nation cannot in any guise be termed as contemptuous of Supreme court order.
The President has done his best to douse the tension by exercising his undoubted executive Presidential powers to salvage a very bad situation which was capable of throwing the nation into complete anarchy.”
According to Daudu SAN, every arm of government must perform its constitutional function as allocated to it by the Constitution in sections 4, 5 and 6 of the hallowed document.
He said, “One arm of Government cannot therefore prevent another arm from performing it’s sacred constitutional functions”.
He asked, Should the President wait until the 22nd of February 2023 when the almighty Supreme Court will take arguments from a battery of senior lawyers and then rule one way or the other on a matter in which they have hinted that they too are looking for a way to ameliorate the sufferings of the Nigerian masses, which with the greatest respect to the SC is not one of its functions or duties?”
The Learned Silk also stressed that the Judiciary only has interpretative functions and should be mindful of straying into the functions of other arms of government.
“The Judiciary is strictly mandated by section 6 of the 1999 CFRN as amended to determine disputes between contending parties. The President’s performance of his own Constitutional functions has not prevented the court from doing its own work assuming it has jurisdiction to determine such issue in the first place.
Courts should be vigilant in performing their own duties and not stray or migrate into attempting to discharge legislative or executive functions. That would be anathema to the very essence of democracy itself.
Finally, courts must be cautious when exercising jurisdiction and/or making court orders, it ought strictly to confine itself to orders against direct parties to the proceedings before it, secondly, it must be satisfied that it is in a position to enforce its orders and thirdly, it must not make orders that will be classified as vain . In this vein, the President enjoys immunity under section 308 of the Constitution thus it would be fruitless to invite the SC to begin contempt proceedings against the President of the FRN.”
