President Muhammadu Buhari has welcomed the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Godwin Emefiele at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, at a second meeting between them on Thursday.
Earlier, Emefiele was part of the audience Buhari granted the Arab Bank for Economic Development team at the Villa.
Emefiele, who returned to the country on January 12 after his annual leave, had been in the eye of the storm over alleged corruption and involvement in terrorism financing, leading to series of attempts by security officials to arrest him.
The Department of State Service, DSS, had sought a court order to arrest him but the request was rejected by the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja.
The DSS had urged the court to order Emefiele’s arrest over alleged “acts of financing terrorism, fraudulent activities and economic crimes of national security dimension.”
On October 20, 2022, Justice Inyang Ekwo sitting in the Federal High Court in Abuja summoned Emefiele over the $53m judgment debt arising from the Paris Club refund.
The court ordered him to appear on Wednesday, January 18, 2023, as the hearing date.
However, Emefiele filed an appeal against the FHC ruling, saying that Justice Ekwo erred in law and occasioned a miscarriage of justice when he made an order compelling his attendance in court for the $53 million debt.
However, Wednesday’s proceedings could not go on as planned when the matter was called, making the court adjourn the case till March 20, 2023.
It is not clear if President Buhari and Emefiele discussed the DSS matter after the meeting with the delegation from Arab Bank for Economic Development.