President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has appointed Mr. Folashodun Shonubi as Acting Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.
Shonubi, who was until his appointment, the Deputy Governor, Operations Directorate of CBN, takes over from Godwin Emefiele, who was suspended from office last Friday with immediate effect.
The suspension announced in a statement by the Director of Information, Office of Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Willie Bassey, was sequel to the ongoing investigation of his office and the planned reforms in the financial sector of the economy.
“Mr Emefiele has been directed to immediately hand over the affairs of his office to the Deputy Governor (Operations Directorate), who will act as the Central Bank Governor pending the conclusion of investigation and the reforms,” the statement said.
In a related development, the Department of State Services, DSS, revealed that Emefiele was in its custody.
This was made known in a statement via the agency’s Twitter handle on Saturday, June 10, 2023.
The statement read, “The Department of State Services (DSS) hereby confirms that Mr Godwin Emefiele, the suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria is now in its custody for some investigative reasons.
“The public, particularly the media, is enjoined to apply utmost caution in the reportage and narratives concerning this.”
Recall that earlier in the year, the embattled CBN governor introduced a naira redesign policy which limited circulation of the naira notes and caused unprecedented cash crunch in the country with attendant hardship.
The naira policy was widely misconstrued as a state-sponsored effort to prevent Tinubu from winning the 2023 presidential election, thus Emefiele’s fate was predictable upon his emergence as Nigeria’s President.
