President Bola Tinubu says the country’s financial system in the hands of Godwin Emefiele, the suspended governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), “was rotten”.

Earlier in the month, Tinubu suspended the CBN governor and ordered a probe of his office. Since then, Emefiele has been in the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS).

Speaking at an interactive session with Nigerians in Paris, France, the president said measures are being taken to address the alleged irregularities done by Emefiele.

“Then the financial system was rotten,” Tinubu said.

“The man is in the hands of authorities, something is being done about that, they will sort themselves out.”

Tinubu said the subsidy on petrol needed to go because it was making a few people rich.

“They thought it was the joke of the century until I called NNPC. We are tired of feeding smugglers, making a few people rich, and subsidising the next-door neighbour,” the president said.

“I met with the president of the Benin Republic today. Everybody is equal now, we are friends. We are conjoined twins joined by the hips, how we will separate each other is with this fuel subsidy.

“Let us see whether we will survive or not but we are going to survive you.”

The president also said the federal government was working to make provisions that would cushion the effect of the removal of the subsidy.

“You want money to increase palliative, transportation. What are you protesting about? Are you sharing part of the subsidy? If you protest, I will join you and protest against it. And they stopped. No protest,” he said.

“Palliative we will get but we have to save the money in order to embark on a palliative [measures].”