Emiefele detained me for 100 days for exposing the forex scam – Whistleblower

Dr. George Uboh, Chairman of the George Uboh Whistleblowers Network (GUWN), has spoken out about his experience being detained for 101 days in 2019 for blowing the whistle on the Forex scam that was occurring under the watch of the controversial Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele.

Yesterday, at a press conference in Abuja, he revealed the information.

President Bola Tinubu’s decision to suspend Emefiele and launch an investigation was praised by Uboh, according to Daily Trust.

The media has been full of stories about Emefiele’s corruption since his arrest; however, before his detention, no one in Nigeria would dare speak ill of the Almighty Emefiele. On or around April 1, 2019, the George Uboh Whistleblowers Network (hereafter GUWN) sent letters to Emefiele detailing his corruption in relation to a forex fraud of more than US$3 billion.

In my Maitama office on May 15, 2019, the day Emefiele went to the Senate for confirmation for his second term, I was taken into custody. Because I slandered Emefiele’s bad reputation, I spent 101 days in jail. Ishaq Bello, who was Chief Judge of the FCT at the time, denied my request for bail. After I had completed the administrative bail conditions set by DIG Mike Ogbizi and his men at Force CID, I was verbally denied bail.

In a letter to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, we wrote, “We humbly request that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR direct law enforcement agencies to work with whistleblowers in order to solve crimes swiftly, trace and recover mind-boggling funds stolen or trapped; and

A separate office (not housed in any ministry to avoid conflicts of interest) should be established to implement and strengthen the whistleblower policy begun by his predecessor, and its director should be someone with the “capacity and passion to imbibe all the tenets of whistleblowing,” as he put it.

Uboh proposed establishing an independent office to protect and compensate whistleblowers as part of the policy’s implementation and strengthening.

He also stressed the need for an experienced whistleblower to head the office and safeguard the rights of employees who come forward with information.