A former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, who was arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on Thursday for alleged complicity in the Australian polymer banknotes bribery scandal estimated at over N750 million, has been released on bail.
A source in the EFCC said that Soludo was released after several hours of interrogation by a team of investigators at the commission, but not before he had surrendered his diplomatic passport and had produced two sureties who were at least senior civil servants in the federal civil service on the rank of permanent secretary or director.
Soludo has, however taken issue with reports that state he was arrested by the EFCC. According to his media spokesperson he surrendered voluntarily to the EFCC in order to aid them in an ongoing investigation.
The statement reads in part, “we want to put it on record that the media reports that Professor Soludo was arrested by the operatives of the EFCC in Abuja are totally false, or to say the least, written in error.
“The fact of the matter is that the EFCC wrote a letter to Soludo, inviting him to their Abuja office on January 10, 2013.