According to the government, Nigeria’s suspended central bank governor is facing twenty fresh accusations.
Last year, Emefiele ran for president of Nigeria in a way that had never been done before. Since June 10, the secret police have been holding him in jail.
A government lawyer says that on Tuesday, Nigerian officials filed a 20-count indictment against suspended and detained central bank governor Godwin Emefiele. One of the charges says that he gave “illegal advantages” to people.
President Bola Tinubu is making some of the most significant changes to Africa’s largest economy in over a decade. At his introduction in May, he criticised the central bank’s policies, especially moves to support the naira currency. Now, he is looking into the central bank’s work under Emefiele.
It needed to be clarified right away what the new fees were. But court papers filed last month by the Attorney General’s Office showed that Emefiele was facing charges like criminal breach of trust and criminal misappropriation of funds, which carry lengthy prison sentences.
Last year, Emefiele ran for president of Nigeria in a way that had never been done before. On June 9, Tinubu fired him, and on June 10, the secret police put him in jail.
The head of the bank who was fired pleaded not guilty to having a gun. After he pleaded guilty on July 25, the judge let him go free on bail, but he was picked up again immediately.
A government lawyer told the Reuters news agency, “We have filed a case with comprehensive charges,” and “We are withdrawing the [firearm] case from the Federal High Court in Lagos.”
Emefiele has argued against his detention and asked to be released on bail, but he hasn’t said anything about the charges in public.
He put in place a policy of various exchange rates to keep the currency artificially strong, which Tinubu’s predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari, had seen as a matter of national pride.
In 2019, Buhari gave Emefiele a second five-year term. He was supposed to leave in 2020. He was the second-longest-serving head of the central bank, and during his time in office, Africa’s largest economy went through its worst economic downturn.
