The Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in charge of Economic Policy, Kingsley Obiora, has been released by the Department of State Services (DSS).
It was learnt that the DSS had arrested, detained and interrogated Obiora, who is not accused of fraud or theft, as part of wider investigations into allegations of financial mismanagement under suspended CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele.
Obiora reportedly spent four nights in the custody of the secret police before he was released.
Recall that President Bola Tinubu fired Emefele on June 9, 2023, and the DSS picked him up a day later.
He has been in the service’s custody ever since, despite his release being ordered by two courts.
The Herald gathered that a Special Investigations Panel set up by President Bola Tinubu and led by Jim Obaze to investigate the tenure of Emefiele is allegedly priming Obiora as a principal witness in the case against Emefiele.
Authorities have also been questioning other senior officials of the bank, including Abbas Umar Masanawa, the Chief Executive Officer of Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL). Before his present position, Masanawa was the Managing Director of Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company (NSPMC) and his arrest and interrogation in July were linked to this role, it was learnt.
Before his present appointment, Obiora was a policy chief at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and advised former Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Godwin Emefiele until March 2, 2020.