The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said the Arabic inscription on naira notes are not a symbol of religion but go back to the colonial era to help those literate Arabic and not in the English language.
The bank also said in the challenge of a law suit at the Federal High Court that it would cost the country a colossal sum of money to discard the existing notes and print new ones without the Ajami.
The suit asking the bank to remove the inscription was filed by a Lagos-based lawyer, Malcolm Omirhobo, before Justice Mohammed Liman of the Federal High Court.
The CBN in response filed a counter-affidavit charging that, “the Ajami inscriptions on some of the country’s currencies do not connote any religious statements or Arabian alignment.”
Omirhobo had said that the Arabic inscriptions on the naira notes portrayed Nigeria as an Islamic state, contrary to the country’s constitutional status of a multi-religious state.
This, he said, violates sections 10 and 55 of the Constitution, which makes the country a multi-religious state.
Section 10 reads: “The government of the Federation or of a state shall not adopt any religion as state religion.”
In the counter-affidavit deposed to by Abiola Lawal, the CBN said that contrary to Omirhobo’s claim, the Arabic inscriptions were not a threat to Nigeria’s multi-religious status.
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 CBN said, “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.”
