Many have described as a can of worms, the Central Bank under its former governor, Godwin Emefiele. The description has become all the more rife since Jim Obazee, the CBN’s special investigator submitted his findings to President Bola Tinubu.
From operating over five hundred offshore accounts to spending money without approval, here are 15 shocking revelations made in the Obazee report:
• Without authorisation, the CBN under Emefiele funded 593 bank accounts located in the UK, US, and China
• The sum of $6.23 million was fraudulently withdrawn from CBN vault under a purported approval of the president to pay foreign election observers.
• Obazee reported gross financial misconduct by the CBN Governor and at least 13 other individuals, including his Deputy Governors.
• A sum of £543.4 million was discovered to have been kept in fixed deposit by Emefiele.
• Manipulation of the naira exchange rate and perpetration of fraud in the e-Naira project of the CBN
• The Naira Redesign was neither recommended by the Board of the CBN nor approved by the then President
• The CBN printed the new N200, N500, N1,000 notes at a total cost of N61.5 billion out of which N31.8 billion has been paid to the Contractor
• The sum of N1.73 billion was spent on questionable legal fees on 19 cases that are directly traceable to the Naira Redesign and reconfiguration agenda
• £205,000 was paid to a UK Firm for naira redesign effort – positioning of watermark, presence of QR codes, different numbering style, and other complex security features
• A fraudulent use of Ways & Means to the tune of N26.627 trillion was also discovered.
• There were also fraudulent intervention programmes and fraudulent expenditures on COVID-19
• Misrepresentation of presidential approval on the NESI Stabilization Strategy Ltd.
• Padding of former president Buhari’s approval with N198.96 billion – approximating N801.04 billion to N1 trillion
• No approvals are received from the former president and yet N500 billion was taken and debited to Ways & Means
• Former CBN Governor and 4 Deputies connived to steal outrightly in order to balance the books of the CBN and no approval was obtained for the breakdown of N22.72 trillion presented to the 9th National Assembly to illegally securitize the “Ways & Means” financing.
