President Bola Tinubu has suspended Godwin Emefiele as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor.
“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has suspended the Central Bank Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, CFR, from office with immediate effect,” the Director of Information, Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation Willie Bassey said in a Friday statement.
“This is a sequel to the ongoing investigation of his office and the planned reforms in the financial sector of the economy.
“Mr Emefiele has been directed to immediately hand over the affairs of his office to the Deputy Governor (Operations Directorate) [Folashodun Adebisi Shonubi], who will act as the Central Bank Governor pending the conclusion of the investigation and the reforms.”
The development is coming less than two weeks after President Tinubu assumed office and months after the CBN’s heavily-criticized naira swap.
Last year, DSS alleged that Mr Emefiele had been financing terrorism, among other allegations.
The DSS requested a court order in December to arrest him on allegations of “financing terrorism, fraudulent activities, and economic crimes of national security dimension.”
This request was, however, rejected by the Federal High Court in Abuja because the secret security unit failed to present sufficient evidence to justify issuing an arrest warrant against Mr Emefiele.
Below are ten allegations DSS levelled against Emefiele last year;
1: Terrorism Financing.
2: Money Laundering
3: Round Tripping
4: Mismanagement of Nigeria’s social investment program
5: Conferment of financial benefits to self and others
6: Criminal conspiracy to divert government resources
7: Funding Unknown Gunmen, ESN and IPOB
8: Unwholesome activities through proxies
9: Illegal economic crimes of national security dimension
10: Threat to national security.
