President Tinubu suspends Emefiele as CBN governor, orders probe of his office

President Bola Tinubu has suspended Godwin Emefiele as the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) with immediate effect.

The suspension was announced in a statement by the director of information, office of the secretary to the government of the federation (SGF),Willie Bassey, on Friday.

According to the statement, Emefiele is to transfer his responsibilities to the deputy governor, operations directorate, Folashodun Adebisi Shonubi.

The deputy governor is expected to act as the CBN governor pending the conclusion of an investigation of Emefiele’s office.

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“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has suspended the Central Bank Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, CFR, from office with immediate effect,” the statement reads.

“This is sequel to the ongoing investigation of his office and the planned reforms in the financial sector of the economy,” the statement reads.

“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 CBN under Godwin Emefiele has been criticized many times over some of it policies.

In the build-up to the last general election, members of Tinubu’s party — the All Progressives Congress (APC) — accused Emefiele of using the naira redesign policy to hurt the chances of the president in the poll.

Three governors under the APC took the federal government to court over the policy.

During his inauguration, President Tinubu also spoke about the naira swap policy and promised to review it.

He maintained that it “was too harshly applied by the CBN given the number of unbanked Nigerians.