Going after Emefiele. On his trip to France in late June Tinubu told a Nigerian audience that the economic sector was “rotten” under Emefiele as CBN governor. “The man is in the hands of the authorities; something is being done about,” he added. Is that “something” prosecution or persecution?
By Charles Obiosa
The hawk had been circling overhead for a while. But who expected the dramatic events that have played out since officials of the Department of State Services (DSS) swooped on Mr. Godwin Emefiele in Lagos on June 10? He was driven in a white pickup van to a waiting aircraft and flown to Abuja where he has been held at the headquarters of the secret police.
Twenty-four hours earlier, Emefiele had ceased to be governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) courtesy of a suspension order by President Bola Tinubu. Months before that, the word was out that the central bank chief had a terrorism case to answer. But the banker remained a free man until a little over a week after Tinubu was sworn in as president.
Since then, Nigerians and the world have been watching the Emefiele saga, a good many with disgust.
Ordinarily, Emefiele’s arrest and prosecution should not cause a stir. Nigeria, the so-called giant of Africa has, for decades, suffered badly at the hands of its public officials, whether elected or appointed, civilian or military. Those officials have wilfully and deliberately bled the country, letting their people down and impoverishing them. Most painfully, not much has been done to hold the looters to account and discourage further looting. Consequently, corruption has become so endemic that the progressive world has left the African giant behind to swim and drown in a pool of filth with a few unflattering nations for company. Ask Transparency International where we stand year after year in the scheme of things.
READ ALSO: Emefiele: Prosecution or persecution?
Emefiele’s arrest, I repeat, shouldn’t be a big deal, ordinarily. In fact, given the agony caused by the Naira redesign or colouration, for instance, even the former central bank governor would not dare take a popularity test in Nigeria let alone expect to pass. But if the authorities suspect that he committed a crime or crimes while in office or out of it, they should duly prosecute him, not brazenly persecute him.
Consider this. For over a month, the Federal Government did not lay any charge against Emefiele after arresting him. When they finally did, it was on the compulsion of a high court, and what was the charge? Illegal possession of a Dane gun and bullets. Pray, if possession of such an antiquated weapon is enough to warrant Emefiele’s arrest, what do you do with non-state actors who brandish their assault weapons publicly, some have asked.
In any event, the DSS would drop the firearms charge and the Lagos court promptly struck it out, with Judge Nicholas Oweibo ruling that the defendant be kept with the correctional service pending the completion of his bail conditions. The DSS insisted that Emefiele would remain with them and rearrested him. The secret police has now charged Emefiele and a female official of the CBN, one Mrs Sa’adatu Ramalan-Yaro, with procurement fraud amounting to over N6 billion. So in about eight months, allegations against Emefiele have moved from terrorism to firearms to breaching the Procurement Act.
Those allegations are hard to unpack. Take the firearms possession matter. Why did the DSS drop the charge after keeping Emefiele for over a month? Has the secret police not infringed on his rights? Has it not left more questions than answers by first arresting and detaining a man before deciding what his offence was?
Lawyers and civil society organisations are not impressed with the DSS; some have only the harshest words for the government agency. Even the manner in which DSS officials roughened up a correctional service chief in their bid to take Emefiele away against the orders of the judge has angered the lawyers. Some legal professionals on the platform, Lawyers in Defence of Democracy (LDD) have accused the DSS of using fabricated charges to keep Emefiele in illegal detention. Spokesman of the group, Ahmed Yusuf Tijani, told reporters that the federal high court in Ikoyi, Lagos did well to grant Emefiele bail when he was arraigned on July 25 on firearms possession charges.
He said, “We condemned that arraignment, and fortunately, the court granted bail to Emefiele, and you saw the show of shame that took place in court that very day. We condemned both the arraignment and the charges, and we told you that the gun in question was a dane gun.
“I think they went back and looked at the charges and realised that they goofed.”
Before now they said Emefiele had a case to answer in relation to terrorism, Tijani said.
Another group, the African Centre for Justice and Human Rights (ACJHR), called the Emefiele saga a” witch-hunt”, an “unfair treatment” of the former apex bank chief.
Questions have also been raised as to whether the words of President Tinubu have emboldened officials of the secret police to throw caution and due diligence to the winds just to bring Emefiele to heel.
On his trip to France in late June Tinubu told a Nigerian audience that the economic sector was “rotten” under Emefiele as CBN governor.
“The man is in the hands of the authorities; something is being done about,” he added.
Is that “something” prosecution or persecution?