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President Buhari, CBN Governor Emefiele meet at Villa

President Muhammadu Buhari  and Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Godwin Emefiele met at the Presidential Villa, Abuja yesterday.

The meeting was the second between the President and Emefiele as the CBN chief 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 wanted for questioning by the Department of State Service (DSS) on alleged corruption and involvement in terrorism financing.

Weeks earlier, the Department of State Service (DSS) sought a court order to arrest him but the request was rejected by the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja. Although popular human rights activist, Femi Falana, SAN, said the court has no power to stop the DSS from arresting Emefiele.

The DSS asked the court to order the arrest of the CBN Governor 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.

Wednesday’s proceedings could not go on as planned when the matter was called, making the court adjourn the case till March 20, 2023.

In another development, the CBN says it would query banks that dispense old notes from their Automated Teller Machines (ATMs).

A Director at the CBN and serving Managing Director of NIRSAL Microfinance Bank Dr. Abdullahi Abubakar Kure handed down the warning in Abuja when he led a team of CBN officials on an unscheduled visit to banks in Abuja.

According to The Nation, at Guaranty Trust Bank on Adetokunbo Ademola Wuse 2 Abuja, the team withdrew old cash from all the ATM machines on the premises.

The story was different at Access Bank also on Adetokunbo Ademola where an ATM dispensed new notes.

After the exercise, Kure said the CBN would query banks found hoarding and or diverting the new notes and dispensing old cash.

He said the CBN has enough “stock of cash to meet the requests of banks but a final decision will be taken after the unscheduled visits end on Friday”.

It was reported that the CBN had been begging banks to come and collect the new notes but deposit money banks refused to comply.

Kure noted that the CBN will go through its “record to ascertain the number of new notes given to banks found to be dispensing old notes via ATM. Where we detect any infractions, such banks would be sanctioned.”

He urged Nigerians to return old notes in their possession through established channels in return for the new ones.

The CBN on Monday directed all banks to dispense only new notes from their ATMs as from January 13, 2023 but they still dispense old notes.

Apex bank has given 31st January 2023 as the deadline for old notes to cease being legal tenders.

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