Foremost human rights lawyer, Femi Falana SAN has threatened to sue the Central Bank of Nigeria over the new policy limiting over-the-counter weekly cash withdrawals by individuals and companies to N100,000 and N500,000, respectively.
In a statement issued in Abuja on Monday, Falana noted that the new policy is in contradiction to the constitution and other relevant economic laws of the country, Investors King learnt.
The legal luminary stated that it is worrisome that the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria has “purportedly” limited cash withdrawals in Nigeria in complete defiance of the established law.
Quoting section 2 of the Money Laundering Act, 2022, Falana stated that “No person or body corporate shall, except in a transaction through a financial institution, make or accept cash payment of a sum exceeding (a)5,000,000 or its equivalent, in the case of an individual; or (b) N10,000,000 or its equivalent, in the case of a body corporate”.
He, therefore, argued that the new withdrawal limit is not known to law and thereby illegal since the existing law which has pegged maximum cash withdrawal to N5 million for individuals and N10 million for corporate bodies has not been amended.
“Since the Money Laundering Act 2022 has not been amended, the limitation of cash withdrawal of not more than N20,000 per day and N100,000 per week fixed by the Central Bank of Nigeria is illegal, null and void in every material. We urge the Nigerian people to ignore the illegal announcement,” the statement read.
Making an analogy of how the withdrawal limit can impede business transactions while pointing out the lack of adequate technological infrastructure to support the policy, Falana said “last week, I, despite being someone who is familiar with smartphones, made a cash transfer to someone, but the person called to tell me that he has not received the amount I sent.”
He thereafter called on President Muhammadu Buhari to prevail on the management of CBN to withdraw the ” illegal guideline and stop announcing more policies that are designed to sentence poor citizens to more excruciating economic hardship”.