In a letter dated July 28, 2023, sighted by Abuja City Journal, President Bola Tinubu had named a former Executive Secretary of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria, Obaze, as the CBN special investigator
Sequel to this development, new details on the erstwhile CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, with regards to his involvement in financial crime has emerged. Investigations by the lead investigator, Jim Obaze, has spilled and exhumed new details of alleged financial crimes under the embattled former CBN governor.
According to the final report titled, ‘Report of the Special Investigation on CBN and Related Entities (Chargeable Offences),’ presented to President Bola Tinubu, Emefiele is accused of unlawfully lodging billions of naira in at least 593 bank accounts across the United States, United Kingdom, and China. These transactions reportedly occurred without the necessary approvals from the CBN board of directors and the CBN Investment Committee.
Some of the key excerpts from Obaze’s document are as follows;
1.Former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Godwin Emefiele is accused of stashing billions of naira in unauthorised foreign accounts, questionable legal fees, and irregularities surrounding the naira redesign policy.
The report, delivered to President Bola Tinubu by the Special Investigator on the CBN and Related Entities, Jim Obaze, alleges Emefiele illegally deposited £543 million in UK banks alone, alongside billions more in the US and China. These unauthorised transactions, totaling potentially hundreds of billions of naira, were reportedly conducted without board or investment committee approval.
The investigation scrutinises the naira redesign policy, suggesting it bypassed proper channels. Documents reveal Emefiele awarded the contract without board approval and potentially misled former President Buhari about the initiative’s scope.
The former President tagged along but did not approve the redesign as required by law. Buhari merely approved that the currency be printed in Nigeria. The redesign was only mentioned to the board of the CBN on December 15, 2022, after Emefiele had awarded the contract to the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Plc on October 31, 2022,’’ the documents noted.
Emefiele could face charges for illegal currency issuance alongside officials who allegedly influenced the process.
Emefiele was said to have contracted the redesign of the naira to De La Rue of the UK for £205, 000 pounds under the vote head of the Currency Operations Department after the NSPM said it could not deliver the contract within a short timeframe.
Obaze, in his report, found that N61.5bn was earmarked for the printing of the new notes, out of which N31.79bn had been paid.
Meanwhile, as of August 9, 2023, findings revealed that N769bn of the new notes were in circulation.
- Officials inflated approvals, took unauthorised withdrawals, and even created false narratives to conceal discrepancies. This pattern allegedly resulted in over N198 billion unaccounted for.
- Non approval of N198,963,162, 187. There are instances where no approvals were received from the former president, Muhammadu Buhari, and yet, N500bn was 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.
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 was N4,449,149,411,584.54.
This may have been the main reason the past administration hurriedly sought that the advances of N22.7trn be securitized by the 9th National Assembly on December 19, 2022, which they also hurriedly did despite the fact that it contravenes section 38 of the CBN Act, 2007.
- The investigators also raise concerns about irregularities in the COVID-19 intervention fund, with specific instances of bypassing formal procedures and potentially diverting funds. Questionable legal fees incurred during the naira redesign controversy, totaling N1.7 billion for 19 cases, add to the list of alleged irregularities.
- N1.325bn was stolen and the money funneled to four companies, including a legal firm which got N300m.
- Between 2015 and 2021, an investment company was said to have collected unlawfully a total of N4.89bn. A breakdown indicated that the firm received N262mn in 2015, N464mn in 2016, N550mn in 2017, N726mn in 2018, N762 in 2019, N684 in 2020 and N1.44bn in 2021, totaling N4.89bn.
- Emefiele also allegedly paid N17.2bn to 14 deposit money banks participating in the Nigerian Electricity Market Stabilisation Facility. A total of 14 DMBs engaged in the manipulation by unlawfully arranging and collecting 1.9535 per cent of the total disbursements paid to the DMBs participating in the Nigerian Electricity Market Stabilisation Facility.
9.The investigation suggests Emefiele may face additional charges for alleged manipulation of the exchange rate, fraudulent e-naira implementation, and tax exemptions granted to foreign firms.
- The investigation also reveals a strange illegal withdrawal/theft of $6.23mn from the CBN vault by two persons who used a forged presidential letter. The suspects who are in custody reportedly 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.
