Following a suit seeking to remove the Ajami (Arabic) inscriptions on naira notes, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has declared that the move is wrong because it would cost a ‘colossal sum of money’ to discard the existing notes and print new ones without Ajami. According to the CBN, Ajami is not a symbol or mark of Islam but an inscription to aid non-English speakers who are literate in and use Ajami for trade.
The apex bank made the submission in a counter-affidavit to a suit filed by a Lagos-based lawyer, Chief Malcolm Omirhobo, before Justice Mohammed Liman.
Malcolm had argued the Arabic inscriptions on the naira notes portray Nigeria as an Islamic state, contrary to the country’s constitutional status of a secular state, Daily episode reports. He further prayed the court to order the CBN to replace the Arabic inscriptions with either English language, which is the country’s official language, or any of Nigeria’s three main indigenous languages – Hausa, Yoruba or Igbo.
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