Tunde Bakare, the senior pastor of Citadel Global Christian Centre, has warned President Bola Tinubu not to make Godwin Emefiele, the suspended governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, a scapegoat over his role in the country’s controversial naira design policy.

Mr Tinubu publicly stated that the policy was designed to scuttle his presidential ambition. Following his emergence as president, one of Mr Tinubu’s immediate actions was to suspend the embattled CBN boss. Mr Emefiele has since been in SSS detention despite a court order granting him bail.

“Mr Godwin Emefiele may have made the wrong judgment calls in the management of Nigeria’s monetary policy, but he must not be made a scapegoat,” stated the cleric and politician in a Sunday sermon. 

Citing the CBN Act 2007, Mr Bakare said, “There is every possibility that the erstwhile central bank governor did not act without presidential authorisation.”

He added, “However, considering the dynamics of the pre-election environment and the then-candidate Bola Tinubu’s public allegation that the naira redesign policy was targeted at him, the optics of the president targeting Emefiele for prosecution after winning the election and being sworn in as the president could be interpreted as a form of vendetta far beneath such a distinguished office.”

In the build-up to the February 25 presidential poll, Mr Tinubu in Ogun accused then-President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime of using the raging fuel scarcity and naira redesign and cash handling policies of the CBN to blunt his chances at the February polls. 

Now president, Mr Tinubu said the ousted CBN governor oversaw a “rotten financial system” in which a few persons made “bags of money.”

The suspended CBN chief is being tried for illegally possessing firearms and ammunition.