The former Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Godwin Emefiele, illegally lodged billions of naira in no fewer than 593 bank accounts in the United States, United Kingdom, and China without the approval of the apex bank’s board of directors and the CBN Investment Committee.
The Special Investigator on the CBN and Related Entities, Jim Obaze, found that the ex-CBN governor lodged £543, 482,213 in fixed deposits in UK banks alone without authorisation.
When contacted, counsel for Emefiele, Mathew Bukkaa, SAN, asked one of our correspondents to send him a text message. He has yet to reply to the message as of the time of filing this report.
Meanwhile, Obaze submitted his final report tagged, ‘Report of the Special Investigation on CBN and Related Entities (Chargeable offences) to President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday.3.8 | Punch
The report partly read, “The former governor of CBN, Godwin Emefiele invested Nigeria’s money without authorization in 593 foreign bank accounts in United States, China and United Kingdom, while he was in charge.
“All the accounts where the billions were lodged have all been traced by the investigator.”
In a letter dated July 28, 2023, President Bola Tinubu had named a former Executive Secretary of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria, Obazee, as the CBN special investigator. The decision was implemented on December 15, 2020.
Anticipatory approval
Also on December 30, 2020, the committee of governors at its 672nd meeting granted another anticipatory approval for N250bn to the Federal Government for payment of salaries pending receipt of a formal request by Mr President and ratification by the board of directors.
The apex bank’s management through the Finance and General Purpose Committee equally granted anticipatory approval on the investment of $200mn in equity warrants of the Africa Finance Corporation.
According to section 38 of the CBN Act, 2007, the CBN could grant temporary advances to the Federal Government in respect of temporary deficiency of budget revenue at an interest.
The section also provides that such advances are to be repaid by the end of the financial year in which they are granted otherwise, the CBN shall be stopped from granting such advances in the subsequent year.
The advance is not to be repaid by way of promissory note, securitization or issuance of treasury bills.
The CBN investigator discovered that the CBN Ways and Means was abused under the Buhari administration.
The document further said, “In an instance, they (senior CBN and government officials) padded what the former President Muhammadu Buhari approved with N198,963,162, 187. There are instances where no approvals are received from the former president and yet, N500bn is taken and debited to Ways and Means.
“There are more shocking instances where the erstwhile CBN governor and his four deputy governors connived to steal outright in order to balance the books of the CBN.
“This was by violently taking money from the Consolidated Revenue account and then charging it to Ways and Means. It was a total of N124.860bn. They even created the narration as a presidential subsidy and expanded the ways and Means portfolio to accommodate crime.
“The CBN officers and even the then acting CBN governor could not produce the Presidential Approval of most of the expenses described as ‘Ways and Means.’ When confronted, to provide the breakdown of the supposed N22.7trn that was presented to the 9th National Assembly to illegally securitise as ‘Ways and Means’ financing, they were only able to partially explain a total of N9.063 trn or N9.2trn depending on which official you are considering his submission and an unreasonable attribution of non-negotiated interest element of N6.5tn.
“This shows that this was the point where the officers of the immediate past administration as well as the erstwhile CBN governor and his four deputy governors connived, defrauded, and stole from the commonwealth of our country with the aid of civil servants.’’
Continuing, the report said, “The true position of the Ways and Means as documented from the reconciliation between the CBN and the Ministry of Finance at the time is N4,449,149,411,584.54.
The suspects currently in custody were said to have presented a forged letter on February 7 and 8, 2023, purportedly signed by Buhari to withdraw the money allegedly meant for payment for foreign election observation missions.
