The Humiliation Of Emefiele

By Comfort Obi

For a man used to luxury, used to power, who had, for years, been in the corridors of power, mingled with raw power, exercised raw power, risen to the highest pinnacle in his country’s financial system, seen raw cash, the manner in which Godwin Emefiele, until the evening of Friday, June 9, 2023, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, was arrested, was humiliating.

Emefiele, suspended, not yet sacked, by President Bola Tinubu was arrested on Saturday, June 10, 2023, while he was in Lagos. With that, the long planned and expected wish to arrest him was finally fulfilled.

On arrest, he was put in handcuffs and driven to the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, local wing, in a very ordinary looking hilux van.

Before he was appointed the CBN Governor in June, 2014, Emefiele was the Group Managing Director of Zenith Bank PlC, one of Nigeria’s biggest financial in the Country.

His handcuffs were obviously removed when they arrived the tarmac where a private jet waited to whisk him to Abuja.

The young Security agent made sure the world saw the handcuffs. He dangled it, perhaps, unconsciously.

A couple of people who watched from afar were in tears at the humiliation. Others were in shock. And others looked on with mouth agape. Life and its irony.

Emefiele looked lost. And weary. And defeated And drained, as he climbed down from the hilux. The colour of his caftan, dull, matched his mood. As he climbed into the aircraft, the swaga was gone.

The questions many asked were: Was the public humiliation necessary? Was the handcuff necessary? Did he resist arrest? Did he commit murder? Is he not adjudged innocent until proved guilty? Why strip him of his dignity?

Here is a man who, on May 27, 2023, was honoured with the third highest National Award in Nigeria- Commander of the Federal Republic, CFR, by the immediate past President, Muhammadu Buhari. Was the former President unaware of Emefiele’s alleged crimes when he honoured him?

For the records, not a few people think Emefiele was long overdue for sack. In the history of Nigeria, no CBN Governor was publicly and brazenly involved in politics more than Emefiele. Not even his predecessor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.

He was so carried away that he actually picked the form to run for the office of the President while he was still CBN Governor. He was, it turned out, a card carrying member of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.

When outrage greeted his aspiration, he went to Court to defend his right to run for President. Emefiele was like a man possessed. Who swore for him? What was he looking for? That was when he ought to have been sacked for desecrating that office. But he was allowed to stay on. Or was it deliberate to make him face this public humiliation?

When he “bloomed” with raw power, he challenged those against him to a fight. “Come and fight me”, he said. That was in the middle of the suffering of the people over the Naira new design. No money no food. Nothing.

Emefiele took it personal. There was no compassion. It was not his fault, of course. Somebody was beating the drum he was dancing to for him. It was the former President.

Independent (?) as the CBN is, somebody hires and fires the Board members, including the CBN Governor. Emefiele couldn’t have redesigned the Naira without President Buhari’s endorsement. But Emefiele was so smitten with, and by ego that he was unable to communicate his situation properly, to let the public know the truth. Even when the powers- that-be in APC described him as evil and called him other unprintable names, he played deaf and dumb.

President Tinubu, at that time, a Presidential Candidate, said he was the target of the Naira redesign. Yet, Emefiele kept quiet. It was like: Who will touch me?

Now, where are all those who pushed Emefiele into aspiring to the office of the President? Where are those who asked him to redesign the Naira a couple of months to a General Election? Where is Buhari? Who will save Emefiele? Who will speak for him?

What I don’t want to hear is “Eh, it is because he is Igbo.” Not true. He was not discrete, let me not say he was lacking in wisdom, or worse.

However, this treatment should not stop with Emefiele. I don’t know the exact crimes he, allegedly, committed. There are too many speculations. Whatever, there are many others worse than him.

Let the hands of the law be upon them, and let the same treatment given to Emefiele be extended to them. No less.