A report on the special investigation into the activities of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which was recently submitted to President Bola Tinubu by a special investigator, Jim Obazee, has been torn to shreds by some of those named in the report as having stolen from the country while in positions of power.
Former CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele, former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Boss Mustapha, and the Tropical General Investments (TGI) Group, which spoke on behalf of Union Bank, all denied the allegations levelled against them.
Emefiele, who responded to the allegations in the publications in a statement he signed hours after being released from the Kuje Correctional Centre, dismissed the entire report.
“Having gone through the publications, I say boldly that the contents of the said publications are false, misleading and calculated to disparage my person, injure my character and serve the selfish interests of the private investigator,” he said.
Even though he had been advised by his lawyers not to say anything about the matters that had been submitted to the court for adjudication, he felt compelled to clarify some of the issues raised in the publication, which he described as “barefaced lies told by Obazee in order to achieve his satanic agenda.”
Emefiele said, contrary to reports that there was no presidential approval for the redesign of the naira, which would have been a violation of the provisions of the CBN Act 2007, “there was indeed a presidential approval.”
His words: “I wish to state unequivocally that there was indeed presidential approval, and the said approval was handed over to the same Jim Obazee during the process of his investigation in the presence of senior CBN officials and his own investigative team.
The report further alleged that Mustapha, along with the embattled former CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, authorised the removal of the cash from the bank’s vault under the guise of funding foreign election observer missions.
The investigator’s report, as quoted by the publication, claimed CCTV footage captured how the money was moved out of the apex bank.
However, Mustapha, in a strongly-worded statement, refuted the accusations, saying it was an “orchestrated attempt to assassinate my character and besmirch my reputation.”
Also, on Sunday, Tropical General Investments (TGI) Group clarified the aspect where Obazee linked the group’s ownership of Titan Trust and Union Banks to Emefiele.
According to a statement issued by TGI’s Head of Corporate Communications, Ms. Rafiat Gawat, some of the assumptions made in the purported document were incorrect, resulting in a conclusion that may not necessarily reflect the actual reality.