The CBN Deputy Governor, Operations, Folashodun Shonubi is allegedly the person working with the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the latest move to remove the apex bank governor, Godwin Emefiele, Pointblanknews.com investigations reveal.
The current plot is unconnected to the recent decision by the apex financial regulatory institution to introduce redesigned Naira banknotes at the eve of the 2023 general elections.
Highly placed sources within the apex bank also revealed to this medium that the move had greatly unsettled powerful persons within the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) hence the move to stop the CBN policy at all cost.
The source fingered Folashodun Shonubi, a Deputy Governor in the CBN as being the conduit pipe through which sensitive information about the bank’s plans is passed to the APC leadership.
Shonubi is believed to be Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s footman within the apex regulatory body and has not hidden his displeasure about the decision to redesign Nigeria’s legal tender.
According to multiple sources, if the plan to remove Godwin Emefiele as the CBN governor succeeds, Aisha Ahmad, Deputy Governor, Financial System Stability Directorate, is to takeover the running of the bank on a temporary basis until after the election.
The substantive candidate that will eventually be appointed as governor should Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu win the presidential election is believed to be Folashodun Shonubi.
“The game plan was to execute the same strategy deployed in ambushing the former EFCC chairman. Mr Emefiele will be picked, detained for 60 days. The detention will be renewed for another 60 days within which, all their plans would have sailed through and a new government formed without any impediment from the Central Bank” a source revealed.
Another source who wanted to remain anonymous said “the real reason why they want Emefiele’s head is because of the billions that had been stockpiled by politicians to be used to prosecute the 2023 general elections.
“The process to rush to financial institutions to get the money changed into the new currency in time for the election is just mind boggling for many of them and that has made the political class angry about the timing which they feel is targeted at them.
“This is why the DSS has been brought in to handle the matter in the way it knows best and get him out of the way as soon as possible”.
Pountblanknews.com recalls that since the rumors of Mr Godwin Emefiele’s move to contest for the 2023 presidential election, many feathers within the political establishment have been ruffled with key players within the political scene calling for his outright removal and prosecution for sundry reasons.
In fact, a group sympathetic to the APC Presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu had, in November, asked President Muhammadu Buhari to remove Emefiele from office and begin the process that will lead to his investigation.
The group, South South Agenda for Tinubu/Shettima (SSAT), claimed that the monetary policies of the Central Bank of Nigeria in recent times were bringing the ruling APC to disrepute.
They submitted that the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele should be suspended from office to enable the board of the Bank, of which the Governor is Chairman, as well as the Financial Reporting Council, look into the books of the Bank unhindered.