By METROWATCH Reporter
President Muhammadu Buhari Thursday received the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The meeting was the second between the President and the CBN Governor today, as Emefiele was part of the earlier audience Buhari had granted the Arab Bank for Economic Development team n the Villa.
Emefiele’s exclusive audience with Buhari was his first meeting with the President at the seat of power this year.
Emefiele appeared in a navy blue suit with a white shirt and his usual green tie, carrying a white file which he clung to his chest.
Emefiele, who got to the Presidential Villa at about 14: 30 GMT, had a closed door meeting for about 25 minutes with the President.
When approached by anxious State House Correspondents, the apex bank’s Governor declined comments.
Recall that after spending his annual holiday overseas, Emefiele returned to the country on January 12, 2023. He had been the target of several attempts by security personnel to arrest him because of allegations of corruption and complicity in the financing of terrorism.
The Federal High Court in Abuja rejected the Department of State Service’s (DSS) request for a court order to arrest him weeks earlier.
The DSS asked the court to order the arrest of the CBN governor over alleged “acts of financing terrorism, fraudulent activities and economic crimes of national security dimension.”
On October 20, 2022, Justice Inyang Ekwo sitting in the Federal High Court in Abuja had summoned Emefiele over the $53 million judgment debt arising from the Paris Club refund.
The court ordered him to appear on Wednesday, January 18, 2023, as the hearing date.
Emefiele, however, appealed the FHC decision, claiming that Justice Ekwo’s order requiring his appearance in court for the $53 million debt was illegal and caused a miscarriage of justice.
The court had to adjourned the case until March 20, 2023 because the scheduled sessions on Wednesday could not go as expected.
