The immediate past Central Bank of Nigeria, Governor, Godwin Emefiele, illegally lodged billions of naira in about 593 bank accounts in the United States, United Kingdom, and China.
President Bola Tinubu’s Special Investigator, Jim Obaze, disclosed that Emefiele opened the bank accounts without the approval of CBN’s Board of Directors and Investment Committee.
The former CBN governor is currently in Kuje prison after he was arraigned by the Nigerian government for alleged N1.2bn procurement fraud.
The High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, had granted him bail in the sum of N300m but he had failed to perfect it.
Obaze disclosed that Emefiele deposited £543, 482,213 in fixed deposits in UK banks alone without authorisation.
He said, “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.”
The investigator also found that Buhari did not approve of the naira redesign, adding that 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 noted.
