CBN counters bid to remove Arabic inscriptions from naira note

 

Linus Chibuike

THE Central Bank of Nigeria has opposed a suit seeking the removal of the Ajami (Arabic) inscriptions on naira notes.

In a counter-affidavit to a suit filed before Justice Mohammed Liman by a Lagos-based lawyer, Malcolm Omirhobo, the apex bank told the Federal High Court that it would be too expensive to discard the existing notes and print new ones without the inscription.

The CBN also argued that the Ajami was an inscription to aid non-English speakers who used Ajami for trade and not a symbol or mark of Islam.

Omirhobo had argued that the Arabic inscriptions on the naira notes portrayed Nigeria as an Islamic state and violated sections 10 and 55 of the Constitution, which makes the country a multi-religious state.

Section 10 states that “the government of the Federation or of a state shall not adopt any religion as the state religion.”

The lawyer therefore prayed the court to restrain the CBN from further “approving, printing and issuing naira notes with Arabic inscriptions, bearing in mind that Nigeria is a secular state”.

He asked the court to prevail on the CBN to replace the Arabic inscriptions with Nigeria’s official language (English) or any of the three main indigenous languages (Hausa, Yoruba, or Igbo).

But the CBN said, “The inscriptions on the country’s currencies do not and at no time have they threatened the secular statehood of the nation, nor have they violated the Constitution of Nigeria, as every design and inscription was finalised with the approval of the relevant government bodies.

“The naira notes retained the inscriptions with Ajami since 1973 when the name of the Nigerian currency was changed to naira from pounds.

“The Ajami was inscribed on the country’s currency by the colonialists to aid those without Western education in certain parts of the country, who, back then, constituted a larger part of the populace.

“The Ajami is not a symbol or mark of Islam but an inscription to aid the populace uneducated in Western education in ease of trade.”

-ThePoint