The Department of State Services (DSS) has arrested Kingsley Obiora, the Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in charge of economic policy.
Obiora is accused of being involved in financial mismanagement under the suspended CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele.
Emefiele has been under investigation by the DSS since June 10, 2023, when he was sacked by President Bola Tinubu.
Tinubu appointed Jim Obazee, a former accountant-general, as a special investigator to look into the activities of the apex bank under Emefiele’s leadership.
Obiora, who joined the CBN in March 2020, is a seasoned economist with a Ph.D. from the University of Ibadan. He has worked at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and served as a technical adviser to Nigeria’s National Economic Management Team.
His arrest is seen as a move to extract more information from him about the alleged financial irregularities at the CBN. Neither the DSS nor the CBN has issued any official statement on his arrest as of the time of this report.