Governors’ counter directives amount to treason — Odinkalu

Forum 1 year ago

Governors’ counter directives amount to treason — Odinkalu

Human rights activist and lawyer, Professor Chidi Odinkalu has said that President Muhammadu Buhari has not disobeyed the order of the Supreme Court by his pronouncement and that the counter directives by some state governors against the president’s order amount to treason.

Speaking on Thursday in an interview on Channels Television, Odinkalu, former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission also said a court does not have the power to give directives on the currency system of a country.

According to Odinkalu “the supreme court, to the best of my knowledge, has not said what people are presenting it to have said, because that is not the province of a court. It is a misplacement of the capabilities and assets of a court for it to get to that kind of thing. I suspect what the supreme court has said is ‘preserve the status quo ante until we hear the case’ — status quo antebellum, which is what the thing was before the onset of litigation.

“Now, the question then becomes what was the status quo antebellum that you are trying to preserve?

“And this is where the laziness of the judicial system, as well as the limitations of the law, actually come to full view because status quo antebellum actually, was the central bank circular on exactly when this thing should stop. I suspect this is the advice the president got. He has not breached anything.

“A currency system cannot be legislated or ordered into existence by a court and every court has to be careful about how it uses or abuses its authority and competence. A currency system is a promise backed up by the guarantee of a central bank, which is such basis of monetary economics.

“If the central bank that guarantees a monetary system withdraws its support, you cannot legislate that into existence because the trust that backed up that monetary system has collapsed. One million supreme court orders will not bring into existence a currency system that has lost legitimacy.

“The core of a government’s credibility, national or international, is three things — defence and security, foreign affairs, and currency.

“On this matter, I think President Buhari is fighting for the last thing a government should fight for, and on that, he is well within his rights to do so. I don’t think it is proper for state governors to go around, issuing orders countermanding a president on exactly the thing that a central government cannot negotiate — money and currency. And quite frankly, what the governors are doing in this matter, verges on treason. You cannot be telling a president to yield up his authority over currency systems. That is not negotiable at all.”