Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, (HURIWA), on Tuesday, asked the Department of State Services (DSS) to speed up investigation and immediately let the court decide the fate of suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele.
HURIWA, in a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, warned the secret police against the media trial of the suspended apex bank chief after he was suspended on Friday by President Bola Tinubu who immediately said the bank’s Deputy Governor of Operations, Folashodun Shonubi, should resume office in an acting capacity.
The group said after the DSS confirmation on Saturday that Emefiele is in their custody in Abuja, the secret police should quit media trial and do the needful by charging Emefiele to court for alleged terrorism financing, money laundering and other suspected crimes, if the DSS has any shreds of evidences linking him to those offences and set him free to avoid making him a political detainee and a victim of persecution.
HURIWA’s Onwubiko said, “The suspension of Godwin Emefiele as Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria was long overdue before it eventually on Friday. Although, we expected President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to apply the principles of rule of law in a his official dealings. We acknowledge that there are lingering issues of whether the President has such powers of suspending the CBN Governor without the approval of two third majority of the National Assembly or not. However, the CBN governor had subjected millions of Nigerians to pains and sufferings due to his crass incompetence and failure to follow the proper channels in exercising his functions and powers as the governor of CBN. He practically made himself the alpha and the omega and did not care about the downward trends and serious devaluation of the Naira.
During his time, Emefiele ran Nigeria’s financial systems aground with bad fiscal and monetary policies foisted on Nigerians including the notorious recent naira cash swap policy.
“He would later, through the backdoor, obtain the N100 million Nomination and Expression of Interest Forms of the ruling All Progressives Congress for the presidential primary in 2022, a move in clear contravention of Section 9 and 11 of the CBN Act. Yet, then President Muhammadu Buhari did not think it deem to sack Emefiele but rather indulged his shenanigans till his (Buhari’s) last minute in office.
“Now that Emefiele has been removed from office, it is crucial that due process be observed. There is no need for media trial but the DSS should let the court of law determine his culpability or otherwise. It is on record that HURIWA had been in the forefront of advocacy campaigns calling for Emefiele’s arrest since after he and then President Muhammadu Buhari subjected poor Nigerians to weeks of ordeals and humiliation during the so-called wobbly Naira redesign initiative.”
