The Federal Government (FG) has amended charges against the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, from 6 to 20.
The Federal Capital Territory High Court permitted Emefiele to move outside the capital city, Abuja.
The court granted this permission after considering the application for a variation of the terms of Emefiele’s bail, filed through his lawyer, Matthew Bukka.
However, the court insisted that the new permission did not allow the embattled former CBN governor to travel out of Nigeria.
The court also ordered Emefiele’s immediate release to his lawyers. Nevertheless, it charged Emefiele’s lawyers with the responsibility of producing him in court for his arraignment next week or any other day. The court further ordered Emefiele to deposit his passport and other travel documents with the court registrar pending his arraignment.
Government sources had indicated that the judge was under scrutiny for his handling of Emefiele’s bail. For instance, the judge was accused of refusing to allow Emefiele to be processed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) after granting him bail.
Additionally, although the judge directed that Emefiele’s “international documents must be deposited with the registrar of this court pending the determination of his case,” sources reported that this was not done by the former CBN governor and his lawyers, yet he was allowed to go home.
There are speculations that Emefiele will now face charges related to criminal breach of trust, forgery, conspiracy to commit forgery, procurement fraud, and conspiracy to commit felony.
Impeccable sources revealed that other defendants alongside Emefiele include the four deputy governors, namely Edward Adamu, Aisha Ahmad, Kingsley Obiora, and the former acting governor of the CBN, Folashodun Shonubi.
Others who may also appear as the trial proceeds are the former chairman of Titan Trust Bank, Babatunde Lemo; the outgoing CBN finance director, Benjamin Fakunle; former personal aide to President Muhammadu Buhari, Tunde Sabiu; and others found culpable in the alleged misconduct at the apex bank.
The prosecution of the former CBN governor will be based on the outcome of the investigation of the apex bank and others by the team of the Special Investigator led by Jim Obazee, the former executive secretary of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), who was appointed by President Bola Tinubu to investigate the CBN and related entities.
Findings show that the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi; President Bola Tinubu; the CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardoso; the Special Investigator; and the Minister of Finance and the Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, have been meeting on the arraignment since December 2023, up to the early days of January 2024, and have agreed on the charges and the processes.
Emefiele, who was appointed on June 4, 2014, during the tenure of former President Jonathan Goodluck, is currently on bail from prison custody over financial crime charges by the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC).
This time, Emefiele and his co-defendants, according to sources at the apex bank, will face further corruption charges, abuse of office, violation of CBN rules, and diversion of government funds.
The CBN, according to Sidi Ali Hakama, the Acting-Director, Corporate Communications, dissolved the boards and management of Titan-Union Bank, Keystone Bank, and Polaris Bank owing to violations of sections 12 (c), (f), (g), (h) of the Banks and Other Financial Act (BOFIA) 2020.
The banks, whose ownership is allegedly linked to Emefiele by the report of Obazee’s team, were said to have committed infractions varying from non-compliance, corporate governance failure, disregarding the conditions under which their licenses were granted, and involvement in activities that pose a threat to financial stability, among others.
Obazee, in his report, has a detailed history of sleaze during the tenure of Emefiele and the four deputy governors, including the unauthorized 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; unauthorized 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.
