Rallying on Wednesday in Garki Abuja, Area 11, outside the Nigeria Television Authority, the groups called for the shutdown.
Bassey Etuk, the organisation’s president, said that the CBN governor was falsely accused of terrorism because some politicians are angry at him for implementing monetary policies that thwarted their attempts to rig the 2023 elections. He said that Nigeria would be set back rather than forward if a motion to have Emefiele arrested were filed with the Federal High Court and that Emefiele should be left alone to carry out the duties to which he had been appointed.
Etuk, in his speech, urged the DSS to avoid having political pressures affect its professional ethics and said that the allegations were a slap in the face to President Major General Muhammadu Buhari’s administration (retd.). “Our attention was once again drawn to the recent motion ex parte brought before a Federal High Court in Abuja by men of the DSS wherein they sought relief to arrest and detain the CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, based on trumped-up charges of financing terrorism, economic crime and crime of national security. This motion was surprisingly made without concrete evidence to prove the frivolous allegations against the workaholic CBN governor that the country cannot forget easily, based on his several transformed economic and monetary policies approved by President Buhari for implementation.
“We are surprised to note the division among top government officials of this regime. While the CBN governor was in faraway US on the entourage of President Buhari, another arm is seeking his arrest back home on trumped-up charges without the president’s consent. The question that begs for answer is, who gave such directives? Is Mr President aware of this allegation before moving in to effect arrest via a court order? On whose interest is the DSS working?
“The civil society movement has great respect for the DG SSS, who we know as a fine gentleman, but we feel that the trumped-up charges are a product of unfounded petition generated by unscrupulous politicians whose fraudulent activities had been cut short by the wonderful and brilliant policies of the central bank governor. We wonder why they left their main mandate and allowed the troubled political class to influence their professional ethics.
“The CBN governor has served diligently for seven years, and the DSS (for) this period didn’t discover this until the recently introduced monetary policy, a policy that majorly affects most of our political class. This is an affront to the government of President Buhari, and we implore (the) Presidency to get to the root of the move aimed to further ridicule and disrepute the office of the president.
“We as a group hereby reiterate our unalloyed support for President Muhammadu Buhari and the CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, while urging the CBN governor to further the implementation of his policies, aimed at further combating inflation, while we warn the distractors and naysayers to allow him deliver on his mandate. The era of cash stuffing at home has gone and won’t come back again. We won’t be deterred to take further actions if this blackmail to remove him from office does not stop now”.
Earlier this week, the group reportedly conducted a protest, as reported by NewsXtra, seeking the arrest of Gudaji Kazaure. Kazaure had claimed that N89 trillion in stamp duty charges had vanished while CBN governor Godwin Emefiele was in control.
