“You may think you will never get caught for your wrongdoing, but be assured that you will be imprisoned by your wrongdoing.”
—Debasish Mridha
By Omoniyi Salaudeen
Months after his incarceration, the embattled former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, on Wednesday, regained his freedom from the dungeon of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
He is now in his Delta home state cooling off his feet. For all he had done while controlling the financial system, his inglorious regime as the head of the apex bank ended abruptly when President Bola Ahmed Tinubu took the oath of office.
He was subsequently arrested by the Department of State Security for sundry allegations of corruption, abuse of office, and possession of firearms, among others. Since he fell into the net, his prolonged detention has been a subject of controversy.
Virtually, all legal practitioners are unanimous in their condemnation of the Federal Government’s impunity and flagrant disobedience of the court order granting Emefiele bail. Even at that, most concerned Nigerians are anxious to see to the end of the ongoing investigation into the allegations of abuse of office and reckless use of power.
On Wednesday, the Federal Capital Territory High Court, Abuja, presided over by Justice Olukayode Adeniyi ordered that he be released with a directive to his three leading lawyers to produce him in court for arraignment on November 15.
Mr Adeniyi, in his judgment, held that he had been detained beyond the legal limits, citing Section 46 (2) of the Nigerian constitution against unlawful detention. Although the constitution limits the detention period of a suspect to a maximum of 48 hours, Nigerian law permits law enforcement agencies to extend the detention period with the permission of a court of law. It was under that pretext that the DSS, which arrested Emefiele on June 10, claimed to have obtained a court order to prolong his detention, before recently transferring his custody to the EFCC to continue necessary investigations.
“There must be an end to a number of days in detention,” Justice Adeniyi said.
Emefiele was reappointed for a second five-year term in May 2019. But for his many alleged sins, his tenure should have been allowed to run its full course till June 2024.
However, President Tinubu, defiant to Section 11 of the Central Bank Act 2007 which specifies the conditions upon which a CBN governor can be removed from office, on June 9, ordered his removal and asked him to transfer the responsibilities of his office to the Deputy Governor, Operations Directorate, Folashodun Adebisi Shonubi.
To be sure, Section 11(2)(f) empowers the president to terminate the appointment of a CBN governor. But the “removal of the governor shall be supported by a two-third majority of the Senate praying that he be so removed”.
If the president cannot get a two-third majority of the Senate to remove the CBN governor, another option would be to wait until he is convicted of a criminal offence by a court of competent jurisdiction following Section 11(2)(b).
On the alternative, Section 11(3) of the CBN Act allows the CBN governor to resign his office by giving at least three months’ notice in writing to the president. None of these have been complied with.
Ordinarily, the refusal of the president to seek the approval of the Senate before the termination of his tenure and the subsequent appointment of a new substantive governor should have elicited public reaction, but he lost public sympathy due to the controversies surrounding his arbitrary use of power. While President Muhammadu Buhari was in power, Emefiele was one of the most influential members of the administration, dishing out harsh policies that raised more questions than answers.
Under him, the naira redesign policy was conceived and implemented in the most cruel and inhuman manner, which foisted untold hardship on the people.
The argument in support of the introduction of the policy was to provide a chance to solidify the cashless policy, enhance the effectiveness of monetary policy, and assist in decreasing terrorism and kidnapping. But a lot of people hold it against him that the implementation was wicked and absolutely inauspicious coming a few weeks before the last general elections.
At the height of the public outcry, the Supreme Court ruled that the policy should be suspended and that new and old currencies remained legal tender until December 31, 2023.
Yet, Emefiele along with the then Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, defied the express order of the apex court until Buhari intervened after a prolonged horse-trading.
The Presidency had to clarify later that President Buhari did not direct Malami and Emefiele not to obey the Supreme Court ruling on the naira redesign policy.
A statement released by the presidency said: “The CBN has no reason not to comply with court orders on the excuse of waiting for directives from the president.”
Under his watch, the CBN lent huge sums of money to the Federal government through Ways and Means (as a lender of last resort), extended credit to multiple sectors through the Anchor Borrowers Programme, and several other ancillary interventions.
Whatever the intention, the ambitious Anchor Borrowers’ Loan Scheme floated to make cash available for farmers leaves much to be desired.
According to available reports, out of the N1.1 trillion disbursed by the CBN to the beneficiaries of the ABS since its inception, only a little above N546 billion has been repaid while a whopping balance of N577 billion has remained unaccounted for.
What is most questionable in the whole of the saga is the suspicion that the subsidiaries of the CBN and a commercial bank that acted as intermediaries between the borrowers and the CBN might have fraudulently diverted the sum of N255 million, which they secured from the lender, but refused to disburse to the borrowers or return to the CBN.
Before his current travails, Emefiele had become a household name for the wrong reason. At one time, he was accused of firearm possession. But a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos struck out the charge filed by the Federal Government.
Justice Nicholas Oweibo ordered his release following a request by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in the Ministry of Justice, Mohammed Abubakar, to withdraw the two-count charge brought against him.
In December 2022, he was also linked to terrorism financing. In the same manner, Justice M. A. Hassan of a High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) restrained the DSS and four others from arresting him. The judge held that any continuous harassment, intimidation, threats, restriction and free movement, abuse of the right of office, surreptitious moves to arrest, and his humiliation over the trumped-up allegations of terrorism financing and fraudulent practices etc, would be vindictive and unwarranted.
In the run-up to the presidential primaries, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) while presiding over the apex bank, Emefiele went beyond the call of duty angling to contest the presidential election.
On May 6, he picked the N100 million presidential nomination and expression of interest form. Even as condemnation continued to trail his alleged vaulting ambition, he took his case to the Federal High Court, Abuja, for judicial intervention.
He refused to back down until Buhari directed that all members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) running for elective offices to submit their letters of resignation on or before Monday, May 16, 2022.
Although reprieve has come over his prolonged detention, President Tinubu will be magnanimous to let all these go without an answer.
As an interested party in the presidential contest, he would be made to answer to some of his alleged wrongdoings. Besides, openness and accountability demand a thorough investigation into the details of the circumstances and individual accomplices in this brazen abuse of public trust.
It is already public knowledge that Emefiele is seeking a plea bargain in the criminal suit filed against him by the Federal Government for the ease of soft landing.
If an agreement is reached, he will be made to part with some of his assets. This is Nigeria; anything can happen. Whatever happens, people are insisting that public interest rather than individual self-interest most be seen to be protected.
