The details of terrorism allegations DSS earlier levelled against Emefiele, now suspended CBN who has also been arrested and detained by the secret police can be accessed below.
NewsOnline had earlier reported that President Bola Tinubu yesterday, suspended the governor of the central bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele.
This online news platform understands that the suspension of CBN Governor Emefiele by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was announced in a terse statement by Willie Bassey Director, Information Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation on Friday night, June 9, 2023.
Subsequently, after his suspension by the president, the Department of State Services (DSS) confirmed it has arrested and detained Emefiele.
ALSO: Naira Falls Massively Amidst CBN Governor’s Suspension
DSS spokesman, Peter Afunanya, posted: “The Department of State Services (DSS) hereby confirms that Mr Godwin Emefiele, the suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is now in its custody for some investigative reasons.”
Details of Terrorism Allegations DSS Earlier Levelled Against Emefiele
According to court documents, the State Security Service (SSS) had earlier in a failed bid to arrest the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, alleged that he has been funding “unknown gunmen” and members of the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
The documents provide, for the first time, the missing details of the terrorism financing allegation that the SSS levelled against Mr Emefiele last December.
NewsOnline reports that IPOB is a separatist organisation that calls for the secession of the five Igbo-dominated states in South-east Nigeria and parts of neighbouring states as an independent Biafra nation.
The group blamed for violent acts in the South-east region in recent years has been declared a terrorist organiation and proscribed by a court as far back as September 2017.
The Nigerian media, including NewsOnline Nigeria, reported in December SSS’ futile bid to obtain an order of the Federal High Court in Abuja for the arrest of Mr Emefiele over wide-ranging allegations, including financing of terrorism during the outgone President Buhari regime.
The Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, John Tsoho, after listening to SSS’ legal team, refused to grant the application for an order against Mr Emefile.
The judge rejected the application in a ruling delivered on 9 December, citing an irregularity in the procedure adopted by the SSS in its application.
The Nigerian media, including NewsOnline Nigeria, only became aware of the ruling 11 days after it was delivered by the court.
But the reports did not provide details about the agency’s weighty allegations against Mr Emefiele.
Eight weeks after the court gave the decision, NewsOnline has now obtained the SSS’ court filings providing astonishing dimensions of the agency’s allegations against the CBN governor.
In a slew of weighty allegations, the SSS accused him of sabotaging President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, financing terrorism, aiding and abetting terrorism, and committing other economic crimes with the effect of undermining Nigeria’s national security.
More specifically, the agency also accused Mr Emefiele of mismanaging the CBN subsidiary, NISRAL, and the central bank’s Anchor Borrowers Programme.
IPOB, terrorism funding
In about the most horrific of the allegations, the SSS accused Mr Emefiele of funding terrorism, unknown gunmen terrorising the South-east region, the IPOB and its armed wing, the Eastern Security Network (ESN).
The SSS alleged that Mr Emefiele funded them with both the resources he raised for his failed presidential bid last year and funds diverted from government coffers.
Mr Emefiele, as sitting CBN governor, controversially bid for the presidential ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) last year. Images of his branded vehicles and other campaign materials surfaced online in the lead-up to the party’s primary election.
He also approached the Federal High Court in Abuja to obtain an order affirming his right to jostle for the APC’s ticket. But the court on 9 May refused to grant Mr Emefiele’s prayer.
The Nigeria’s spy agency said in its filing in December that Mr Emefiele “procures a number of vehicles and disbursed funds for his botched presidential ambition.”
It added that “the said funds and vehicles are being channelled into funding of Unknown Gunmen, Eastern Security Network (ESN) and elements of IPOB, a proscribed organisation.”
In addition, the agency said Mr Emefiele, “on several occasions in actions prejudicial to the security of the Nigerian state,” engaged in “criminal conspiracy to divert government resources into suspicious acts of terrorism financing”.
It said the actions of the CBN governor were “meant to subvert and sabotage” President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
But as weighty as the allegations, coming from the government’s flagship intelligence agency are, Mr Buhari has continued to hold one-on-one meetings with Mr Emefiele since December. This raises questions about whether the president has any regard for the “credible intelligence” the SSS claimed it gathered about the nation’s top banker.
The SSS, which is at the forefront of government’s efforts to quell separatist activities around the country, was holding the leader of IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu, in custody when it linked Mr Emefiele to the funding of the proscribed group in December.
Neither the Presidency, the SSS nor Mr Emefiele has commented on the allegations.
Money laundering, fraud, mismanagement of interventionist funds
The SSS also accused Mr Emefiele of “fraud, money laundering, round tripping and conferment of financial benefit to self and others.”
Mr Emefiele is also involved in mismanaging of various interventionist funds of the government under his control, according to the SSS.
Funds belonging to the Social Investment Programme (NISRAL) and the Anchor Borrowers Scheme were among those the SSS accused Mr Emefiele of mismanaging. The two agencies are interventionist schemes to boost food production and encourage farmers.
The SSS also accused Mr Emefiele of mismanaging “other key economic sectors of the economy”.
‘Emefiele’s syndicate’
In another breathtaking allegation, the SSS claimed it was on the trail of members of a criminal syndicate of which Mr Emefiele is allegedly a part.
It said “investigation is still ongoing on a wider scale as other members of the syndicate chain need to be identified and arrested to enable successful prosecution.”
The agency accused Mr Emefiele of aiding and abetting terrorism, and alleged further that he used proxies from his alleged syndicate “to carry out his illegal economic crimes of national security dimension with potent threat to the country’s security.”
Why court rejected SSS’ application
In rejecting SSS’ application on 9 December 2022, however, the judge, Mr Tsoho, pointed out a flaw in the procedure adopted by the agency to ask for an order for Mr Emefiele’s detention for 60 days.
He said the request by the secret police ought to have been preceded by the arrest of the suspect which did not require a court order.
“This is not the situation here, as Godwin Emefiele, the CBN governor was shown on television, even last night, having an audience with the President of Nigeria,” the judge said. “It therefore seems that the applicant intends to use the court as a cover for an irregular procedure which is unacceptable.”
The judge said “an application of this kind (by the SSS) should have evidence of the approval of the respondent (Emefiele’s) boss (President Buhari), that such measures are authorised to be taken,” owing to the “sensitive position” he “occupies…as one of the key drivers of the nation’s economy.”
“I decline to grant this application ex parte,” the judge declared.
Femi Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, said the SSS’ allegations against Mr Emefiele robs Nigeria of investors’ confidence in the economy.
“Nobody will want to do business with your country when the head of the Central Bank is a terrorism suspect,” the senior lawyer said in a telephone interview with PREMIUM TIMES,
Similarly, Mr Emefiele’s predecessor, Lamido Sanusi, a former Emir of Kano, was accused of terrorism financing by the Goodluck Jonathan-led regime in 2014, and was removed from office, Mr Falana recalled.
Also commending the judge for dismissing what he termed, “the unworthy application by the SSS to arrest the CBN governor,” Olisa Agbakoba, a former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), challenged the secret police to sue Mr Emefiele if “there is evidence.”
