TheCable

Citizens Participation Against Corruption Initiative, a civil society organisation, says Godwin Emefiele, former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), should face justice for his alleged crimes. 

Bishir Dauda, the CSO’s executive director, who spoke at a press conference on Sunday in Katsina, was reacting to the report by Jim Obazee, a special investigator probing CBN and related entities.

Obazee was appointed in July by President Bola Tinubu to probe the activities of the apex bank under Emefiele.

According to the final panel report submitted to the president on Wednesday, there were several “fraudulent” activities during Emefiele’s tenure, including the crooked use of the Ways and Means advances by the CBN, unapproved naira redesign, among other infractions.

Dauda said the panel did an “excellent job without fear or favour” for unravelling the “illegalities” during Emefiele’s tenure.

“As a civil society organisation, we can’t keep silent or take a neutral stand in the face of this mind-boggling corruption scandal,” Dauda said.

“We, therefore, wholeheartedly agree with Mr Bayo Onanuga and other well-meaning and patriotic Nigerians, including development partners and the international community that the sacked governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank, Godwin Ifeanyi Emefiele, must not get away with the monumental allegations of illegalities levelled against him, including cases that bother on treason, terrorism financing, breaching CBN Act, personal aggrandisement and illicit enrichment of cronies.

“Nigerians cannot simply forget how CBN under Emefiele haphazardly implemented the naira redesign policy otherwise referred to by some experts as ‘money confiscation’.

“This ill-thought policy not only aggravated the suffering of Nigerian citizens where people started sleeping in ATM queues to the extent that riots broke out in some states but also was characterised by lack of transparency, accountability and political brouhaha.

“After reading the Obazee report, we are dumbfounded to learn that Emefiele did not even get the approval of the then President Buhari or recommendation by the board of CBN, as provided in section 19 (1) of the CBN Act 2007, yet he went ahead and implemented a policy that sabotaged Nigeria.”

The group said no civilised country desiring development will “condone what Emefiele and his accomplices did”.

The CSO said Emefiele and those indicted in the report must be made to face justice irrespective of their standing.

Emefiele was released from the Kuje correctional centre in Abuja on Friday after meeting his bail conditions.

He was arraigned and remanded in custody for months over alleged procurement fraud.