The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele, has debunked reports that he was plotting against the President-Elect, Bola Tinubu.
In the build-up the February 25 presidential election, Tinubu and some of his cronies in the All Progressives Congress (APC) had accused Emefiele of introducing the naira redesign policy to give Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) an edge in the election.
Also, a media report has it that the apex bank released N500 million in new banknotes to give the governorship candidate of the Labour Party in Lagos, Mr. Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour an edge over the two other major parties in this Saturday’s governorship poll.
Citing unnamed sources, the report alleged that the released notes were part of Emefiele’s contribution to take over Lagos from Tinubu’s influence as the President-elect will be relocating to Abuja.
But in a statement issued on Monday, the CBN’s Acting Director of Corporate Communications, Isa Abdulmumin, said Emefiele “has never met or even spoken with Mr Gbadebo Rhodes Vivour”.
“The attention of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has been drawn to a story 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,” Abdulmumin said.
“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.”