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Jonathan / BuhariGovernor, Central Bank of Nigeria· 3 June 2014 — 9 June 2023 (suspended)

Godwin Emefiele

Suspended on 9 June 2023; arrested and tried. Naira redesign of October 2022.

The record

Godwin Emefiele (b. 4 August 1961, Agbor) was Group MD of Zenith Bank before his CBN appointment. He served a full first term and was renewed for a second by Buhari in 2019 — the first CBN Governor to be reappointed since 1973.

His tenure included multiple controversial interventions: the foreign-exchange list of 41 restricted items (2015), the e-Naira (October 2021), and the Naira redesign of October 2022 that produced the 2023 cash crunch.

He was suspended on 9 June 2023 by President Tinubu, then detained by the DSS. He has faced over a dozen criminal charges since.

Sources

  • CBN — Press release on Naira Redesign, 26 October 2022
  • EFCC — Charge sheets, 2023–2024
Methodology

Tier 1 · primary

Courts. Gazettes. National archives.

Tier 2 · corroborating

OCCRP. HRW. BudgIT. TheCable.

Tier 4 · tertiary, flagged

Wikipedia only where primary is pending. Always labelled.