The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele has been granted study leave by President Muhammadu Buhari according to SaharaReporters.
The report says that it is an opportunity for Emefiele to flee the country before Buhari leaves office on May 29, 2023, comes amid corruption and terrorism-financing allegations against him.
The Department of State Services (DSS), which made futile attempts to arrest and detain Emefiele in the past over the damning allegations against him, is said to frown at the prospect of seeing the CBN governor evade justice.
“The DSS has kicked against the study leave reportedly granted to Emefiele as it means he will flee the country before May 29 when another government comes in,” a source told the newspaper on Friday.
The president-elect, Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is expected to be sworn in as Nigeria’s new president on May 29 barring any court judgement to the contrary as his election victory is being challenged at the election petition tribunal by a number of opposition parties and a few other entities.
SaharaReporters had exclusively reported how the DSS accused Emefiele of sabotaging the economy, financing terrorism and committing other economic crimes.
The report quotes government sources as saying that an investigation linked Emefiele to a well-known terror financier, whom the apex bank governor had sent funds for onward transfer to controversial Islamic cleric Sheikh Ahmad Gumi.
In 2022, one of Gumi’s associates, Tukur Mamu, was arrested and detained by Interpol at Cairo International Airport in Egypt while awaiting a connecting flight to Saudi Arabia.
Upon his return to Nigeria, he was arrested by the DSS over allegations that he was heading to Saudi Arabia to meet with some international terrorists.
The secret police also accused Emefiele of “fraud, money laundering, round tripping and conferment of financial benefit to self and others.”
The agency sought a court warrant to arrest the CBN governor but Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice John Tsoho, refused declined the application, citing an irregularity in the procedure adopted by the DSS in its application.
In court documents obtained by PREMIUM TIMES, the DSS in its application filed as an ex parte motion, sought court permission to detain Emefiele for 60 days to conclude an ongoing investigation into his alleged crimes.
The application was reportedly supported by an affidavit deposed to by a DSS official, Umar Salihu, who summarised the details of the investigations into the weighty crimes Emefiele allegedly committed.