President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has dropped the hints why the suspended governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, was arrested and in detention of the Department of State Security (DSS).
Tinubu, who spoke on Friday at an interactive session with Nigerians in Paris, France, said Emefiele destroyed Nigeria’s financial system as governor of the apex bank.
Quoting Tinubu, he said the country’s financial system was “rotten” under him.
Mr. President said: “Few people make 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. The man is in the hands of authorities, something is being done about that, they will sort themselves out.”
On the need for subsidy removal, he said: “They thought it was the joke of the century until I called NNPC. We are tired of feeding smugglers, making a few people rich, and subsidizing the next-door neighbour.
“I met with the president of the Benin Republic today. Everybody is equal now, we are friends. We are conjoined twins joined by the hips, how we will separate each other is with this fuel subsidy. Let us see whether we will survive or not but we are going to survive you.”
He, however, said the Federal Government was working on provisions that would cushion the effect of the removal of the subsidy.
Explaining how his government stopped the proposed mass protest on subsidy removal on petrol, said: “You want money to increase palliative, transportation. What are you protesting about? Are you sharing part of the subsidy? If you protest, I will join you and protest against it. And they stopped. No protest.
“Palliative, we will get but we have to save the money in order to embark on a palliative [measures].”
Emefiele, who was accused of various crimes, including financing terrorism, has been in the custody of the DSS since June 10, following his suspension from office by the president.
