AFederal High Court in Abuja has ordered the State Security Service (SSS) to charge former governor of Nigeria’s central bank Godwin Emefiele to court.
Justice Hamza Muazu of the FCT High Court, in his ruling on Thursday, gave the SSS one week ultimatum to charge Mr Emefiele or release him.
The ousted CBN governor had filed a suit challenging the SSS for violating his rights by arresting him without a court order. In the suit, Mr Emefiele also prayed the court award him N5 million in damages as compensation for the violation of his human rights by the SSS.
Mr Emefiele has been in the custody of the secret police since June 10, a day after he was fired from office by President Bola Tinubu.
The secret police had before now alleged without evidence that a pro-Emefiele group and some of its staff were plotting to destabilise Mr Tinubu’s government.
However, the SSS is yet to state why Mr Emefiele is being detained.
Speaking in a meeting with Nigerians in Diaspora in France, Mr Tinubu said the ousted CBN governor oversaw a “rotten financial system” in which a few persons made “bags of money.”
“The financial system was rotten. Few people making bags of our money and then you yourself, you stopped sending money home to our poor parents. Several windows. But that is gone now, is gone,” Mr Tinubu said. “The man [Emefiele] is in the hands of authorities, something is being done about that, they will sort themselves out.”
