By Damilare Adeleye
Godwin Emefiele, immediate past Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has been accused of illegally lodging billions of naira in about 593 bank accounts in the United States, United Kingdom, and China.
President Bola Tinubu’s Special Investigator, Jim Obaze, reported that Emefiele opened the bank accounts without the approval of CBN’s Board of Directors and Investment Committee.
He added that Emefiele deposited £543, 482,213 in fixed deposits in UK banks alone without authorisation.
This was contained in Obaze’s final report tagged, ‘Report of the Special Investigation on CBN and Related Entities (Chargeable offences)’ submitted to Tinubu.
The report reads partly: “The former governor of the CBN invested Nigeria’s money without authorisation in 593 foreign accounts in the United States, China and the United Kingdom while he was in charge.
“All the accounts where the billions were lodged have all been traced by the investigator, In the UK alone, Emefiele kept £543,482, 213 in fixed deposits without authorization by the CBN board and the Investment Committee of the bank.”
On a similar development, the report also indicted Emefiele over the Naira redesign policy.
This is even as the investigator revealed that former President Muhammadu Buhari did not approve the policy.
The documents submitted on Wednesday indicated that the former Apex Bank governor might face fresh criminal charges over the handling of the CBN naira redesign policy.
Emefiele could be prosecuted for illegal issuance of currency under section 19 of the CBN Act alongside Tunde Sabiu, former aide to former President Muhammadu Buhari, and 12 top directors of the CBN.
The report revealed that the naira redesign policy was sold to Buhari at the instance of Sabiu, and that the initiative was done without the approval of the board of the CBN.
“The investigator found that Buhari didn’t approve of the naira redesign. It was Tunde Sabiu who first told Emefiele in September 2022 to consider the redesign of the naira. On October 6, 2022, Emefiele wrote to Buhari that he wanted to redesign and reconfigure N1000, N500 and N200 notes.
“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 reads partly.
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.
The special investigator found that N61.5bn was earmarked for the printing of the new notes out of which N31.79bn had been paid.
Tinubu had suspended Emefiele as apex bank governor to investigate his activities while in office. The former CBN governor is currently in Kuje prison after he was arraigned by the Nigerian Government for alleged N91.2 billion procurement fraud.
The High Court of the Federal Capital Territory had granted him bail in the sum of N300m but he has not been able to meet the bail conditions.