The Supreme Court has announced its decision to deliver its judgment on the lawsuit against the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) Naira redesign policy on March 3. The announcement was made by a seven-member panel of the court on Wednesday.

Kaduna, Kogi, and Zamfara initiated the suit before the Supreme Court, seeking to restrain the federal government from enforcing the deadline on the use of old N200, N500, and N1,000 notes. Six more states, including Rivers, Kano, Niger, Jigawa, Nasarawa, and Abia, joined the lawsuit, bringing the total number of states to 16.

Read also: Five more states join suit challenging naira redesign policy of CBN

On February 8, the Supreme Court restrained the CBN from enforcing the deadline on the use of old Naira notes following an ex parte application brought by the three states. Since then, several other states, including Ekiti, Ondo, Katsina, Ogun, Cross River, Lagos, and Sokoto, have joined as co-plaintiffs, while Edo and Bayelsa states joined the attorney-general of the federation (AGF) as defendants.

The plaintiffs are arguing that the policy has caused undue hardship for Nigerians, with Lagos state’s attorney general, Moyosore Onigbanjo, stating that the suit was filed not only on behalf of Lagos residents but also for the state government, whose constitutional functions have been affected by the policy.

Representatives of Kaduna and Kogi states have asked the Supreme Court to set aside the preliminary objection of the AGF opposing the lawsuit for being in contempt of the court order of February 8. Jigawa state has also asked the court to set aside President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive, which limits the Supreme Court’s order to only the old N200 note.