Mr. Godwin Emefiele, the suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), is scheduled to appear before the Lagos Division of the Federal High Court on July 25.
The Department of State Services (DSS) has been holding him in custody, and he will be asked to enter his plea before Justice Nicholas Oweibo. The DSS had accused him of various offenses, prompting his arrest at his residence in Lagos on June 10, a day after his suspension by President Bola Tinubu.
A group of human rights lawyers, led by Mr. Maxwell Okpara and Ahmed Tijani, have expressed their objections to Emefiele’s continued detention, arguing that the DSS is acting in violation of existing court judgments.
As a result, they initiated contempt action against the Director General of the DSS, Mr. Yusuf Bichi, and have called for his dismissal. The lawyers filed Form 48 and Form 49 before the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, seeking to address the consequences of disobeying a court order and to commit the alleged contemnor to prison.
The charges against Emefiele, in a case numbered FHC/L/437/2023, are that he unlawfully possessed a single-barrel shotgun (Jojeff Magnum 8371) without a license, an offense under Section 4 of the Firearms Laws of the Federation 2004 and punishable under Section 27 (1) (b) (i) of the same act. Additionally, he is accused of possessing 123 rounds of live ammunition (cartridges) without a license.
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