By Ogochukwu Isioma
Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, has denied plotting against president-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu ahead of Saturday, March 18, 2023 governorship and state house of assembly elections in Lagos State.
Tinubu’s newspaper, The Nation, had in a report, claimed that Emefiele has launched a fresh plot against Tinubu by making unspecified amount of money available to the governorship candidate of the Labour Party, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour to prosecute the election.
Reacting to the report, however, Emefiele who spoke through Isa Abdulmumin, Acting Director, Corporate Communications of the CBN, in a statement on Monday, described the story as “completely false and malicious”.
The statement reads, “The attention of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has been drawn to a story published in The Nation newspaper of Monday, March 13, 2023 edition, alleging that the Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele has launched a “fresh plot against President-elect”. The aforementioned story went further to allege that the Governor has made certain amount of money available to a political aspirant ahead of March 18, 2023 gubernatorial poll.
“We wish to inform members of the public that this story is completely false and malicious as the Governor does not know and has never met or even spoken with Mr Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour either in person or through proxy.
“We wish to reiterate that the CBN Governor does not take part in politics and therefore urge anyone with contrary information to prove the Governor wrong should provide such facts.
“As such, the Governor and team at the CBN should be allowed to focus on their assigned job with a view to achieving statutory mandates of the Bank.”