Business
Lawyer files petition to take away Arabic letters from Naira
The lawyer wants to replace the Arabic with English alphabets or one of the country’s major languages - Hausa, Yoruba or Igbo.
Lawyer files petition: A court in Lagos, Nigeria, is set to hear a lawsuit filed by a lawyer seeking to force the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to remove Arabic letters from the country’s currency.
The court is due to hear the case on Tuesday.
Malcolm Omirhobo also wants the court to compel the military to remove the Arabic alphabet from its logo, saying that doing so is tantamount to Islam in Nigeria, which is against the country’s constitution.
The lawyer wants to replace the Arabic with English alphabets or one of the country’s major languages - Hausa, Yoruba or Igbo.
However, the central bank has denied that the Arabic alphabet is an Islamic symbol.
Many people in the country, especially those living in northern Nigeria speak speak Hausa which can be written in Arabic script. Although, English is the official language of the country.
Previously during the Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, the Arabic alphabets were removed from N5, N10, N20 and N50 notes which eventually caused an uproar in Northern Nigeria.
Historically, before the coming of the British in Nigeria, the Hausas previously made use of the Arabic script to write in Hausa but was later changed during colonial and post colonial times but was however introduced into the early currencies which Nigeria minted.
