ABUJA (Sundiata Post) – A former governor has been identified as the brain behind the leakage of the full report of the Special Investigator on the ex-Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele.
President Bola Tinubu had approved the probe, appointing Jim Obazee as the Special Investigator.
Though snippets of the report had been reported by some newspapers, the full report became public document at the weekend.
The report was said to have been submitted last week Wednesday to President Tinubu by Obaze.
But on Sunday, a report by The Eagle Online said that the former Governor, reported to be the first non South Westerner to take a chieftaincy title from a South West state, made the full report public after he was given by one of those who had access to it.
Though one of the sources could not adduce the reason for this move, the former two-term Governor, who was highly touted for a ministerial appointment in the Tinubu administration, has been accused of “bad belle” in releasing the report.
Among other things, the report indicted Emefiele for the authorised funding of 593 bank accounts in the United Kingdom, United States of America and China; fraudulent cash withdrawal of $6.23 million from the CBN vault under a purported presidential approval to pay foreign election observers; gross financial misconduct by Emefiele and at least 13 other individuals, including his Deputy Governors and acting Deputy Governor after the suspension of Emefiele, Folashodun Shonubi; £543.4 million held in fixed deposits by Emefiele; manipulation of the Naira exchange rate and perpetration of fraud in the CBN’s e-Naira project; unauthorised Naira Redesign without Board or presidential approval; and printing of new N200, N500, N1,000 notes, costing N61.5 billion, with N31.8 billion paid to the contractor.
Other findings of the report include expenditure of N1.73 billion on questionable legal fees related to the Naira Redesign; payment of £205,000 to a UK Firm for the Naira Redesign; fraudulent use of Ways and Means totaling N26.627 trillion; fraudulent intervention programmes; and fraudulent expenditures related to COVID-19.
Others were misrepresentation of presidential approval on the NESI Stabilization Strategy Limited; padding of former President Muhammadu Buhari’s approval by N198.96 billion; unapproved N500 billion taken and debited to Ways and Means without former presidential approvals; Emefiele and his four Deputies allegedly conniving to misappropriate funds; and no approval for the breakdown of N22.72 trillion presented to the 9th National Assembly to illegitimately securitise the Ways and Means financing.
