A socio-political group, Agbor Stakeholders Forum, has described the recent disclosure by the federal government to contract accounting firm, DELOITTE Consulting to audit the forex transactions of the CBN during the administration of former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, as a ploy by President Bola Tinubu “to break our brother and probably jail him for purely political reason.”
In a statement that was signed by the leader of the group, Kanene Kachikwu, said Emefiele was singled out for “persecution” because he obeyed and implemented former President Muhammadu Buhari’s naira redesign policy directive. The last administration introduced the currency redesign ahead of the 2023 presidential election to curb election rigging through vote buying.
“Today, our brother Emefiele is being hounded for carrying out the presidential directive,” he stated. He said President Tinubu should know that the step was taken to save Nigeria’s democracy and protect the integrity of the nation’s election process.
The stakeholders pleaded with President Tinubu to grant their brother reprieve in the spirit of reconciliation and national healing. “We beseech President Bola Tinubu to have a change of heart and let our brother go. He has gone through a lot already having lost his tenured job and having suffered humiliation and incarceration for months, we urge Mr President to apply the graces of his good offices and free our brother.”
The forum said the federal government is spending a huge amount of money to clandestinely find evidence to nail Emefiele after previous efforts including the use of State Security Service (SSS), the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and a special investigator, Mr Jim Obazee failed to nail him to any wrongdoing.
It said Emefiele who was headhunted for the CBN job 2014 by the then administration of Goodluck Jonathan is now being harassed for safely navigating the financial sector and the economy through the local and global headwinds that almost sank the economy.
“He remains a major shareholder in the bank and therefore, was probably the richest CBN governor ever to be appointed. We therefore state categorically that Mr Emefiele was not in the CBN to look for money or to make money,” the group stated, adding that “his driving force was and remains the need to mobilise idle long-term funds for the rapid development of Nigeria”.
It bragged that Nigeria’s landscape today is full of glowing outcomes of Emefiele’s infrastructure footprints.
