Presidency, CBN lack powers to impose cash withdrawal limit — Lawyer

An Abuja-based lawyer, Malachy Nwaekpe has said that Nigeria’s President and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) lack the powers to impose cash withdrawal limits on depositors.

Nwaekpe has, therefore, filed an originating summons before a Federal High Court in Abuja seeking an order of perpetual injunction directing the CBN to immediately provide evidence of the amount of redesigned currency notes and coins it disburses to each commercial bank and other banking institutions in Nigeria.

Speaking with Daily Trust, Nwaekpe said this was to enable the CBN and indeed the entire public, to know whether its bankers have adequate funds for their numerous customers including the CBN upon demand.

He argued that the CBN went beyond its powers by limiting withdrawals of customers’ funds through policy when the Special Control Unit Against Money Laundering (SCUML), Money Laundering Prevention and Prohibition Act, 2022, and the Bill of Exchange Act had put N5 million as the limit for individual withdrawals and N10 million for a body corporate, such provisions have not been amended

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“The monetary policies of the CBN are not statutory legislations and cannot be in conflict and, or in contradiction with the provisions of the Act of the National Assembly; and neither the CBN governor nor the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria can take a policy that can contradict a valid Act of the National Assembly, this would amount to executive rascality and insubordination, therefore, null and void and of no effect whatsoever,” he said.

No commercial bank has any reason to refuse the demand for withdrawal by a customer so long as he/she has a sufficient deposit to support such demand, adding that anything contrary to this amounts to a fundamental breach of the customer-banker relationship.

He contended that the CBN is under obligation to ensure a sound financial system in Nigeria under sections 2(d), 42(a), 47(2), (3) and (4) of the Central Bank Act.