The governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has denied allegations that he approved the release of N500 million in new bank notes to shore up the Labour Party (LP) campaign in Lagos state.
The Nation newspapers owned by the presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, sensationally reported on Monday that the apex bank released the money in new bank notes to shore up the campaign of the LP in the state in the run up to the March 18, 2023 gubernatorial elections.
The newspaper credited the report titled “Emefiele launches fresh plot against President-elect Tinubu” to an unnamed source it claimed spoke to its reporter.
Describing the controversial release as the CBN governor’s fresh plot against Tinubu, the newspaper said this was part of the determined effort by Emefiele to influence the outcome of the March 18 governorship election in Lagos State against the ruling All APC.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had controversially announced the APC candidate as the “President-elect” based the result of the February 25 Presidential election in which local and international monitors and Observers have widely discredited as significantly flawed.
But, reacting to the report, the acting spokesperson of the CBN, Isa AbdulMumin, who described it as fake news, urged the general public to disregard it in its entirety.
The CBN statement read: “The attention of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has been drawn to a story published in The Nation newspaper of Monday, March 13, 2023 edition, 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 a certain amount of money available to a candidate ahead of the March 18, 2023, gubernatorial poll.
“We wish to inform members of the public that this story is completely false and malicious, as the CBN Governor does not know and has never met or even spoken with Mr. Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, either in person or through a 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 by providing any facts.
“As such, the Governor and his team at the CBN should be allowed to focus on their assigned job with a view to achieving the statutory mandate of the Bank,” AbdulMumin said.
