One of the first acts of President Bola Tinubu as soon as he got his feet under the presidential desk was to suspend Central Bank of Nigeria governor Godwin Emefiele. The next move was for the secret police (DSS) to arrest Emefiele on 9 June and he has since been held in detention for over a month.
A federal High Court in Abuja ruled on Thursday that Emefiele should be released or charged. It has been reported that the charges include funding terrorist activities in the country as well as other economic crimes.
An insider at the DSS has revealed to Naijiant.com that while it is widely known within the agency that Emefiele was corrupt, he was not the only crooked person in the crime scene also known as government in Nigeria. He was possibly only different because he was said to be brazen about his corruption, with an ostentatious lifestyle that included amassing the most expensive cars in his homes in Abuja and Lagos.
But the Emefiele’s real crimes according the DSS source was the introduction of new currency notes in October last year allegedly to curb money laundering. The real reason, said the source, was to checkmate Tinubu’s (s)election plans. Presidential candidate Tinubu was alleged to have stored billions of naira for vote-buying, paying thugs to disrupt voting, buying off officials, security agencies, and other forms of ballot manipulation. A change of currency threatened to render the stored billions worthless, especially with the short timeframe allocated for swapping the old notes with new ones at banks.
Although Tinubu still managed to secure a favourable result in the presidential (s)election, by hook or by crook, the DSS insider said, “the president is a very vindictive man and has never forgiven Emefiele”.
Our source doesn’t expect the former central banker’s woes to be over shortly.
