The trial of former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Godwin Emefiele continued on Tuesday, with a former Director of Operations, Ahmed Umar, testifying that the naira redesign initiated by Emefiele in late 2022 lacked approval from the Committee of Governors.
Emefiele was arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on May 15 before Justice Maryanne Anenih of the Federal Capital Territory High Court.
The charges include alleged unlawful redesign and printing of the new naira notes.
The EFCC, in case CR/264/2024, claims Emefiele executed the naira redesign policy without the CBN Board’s and President Muhammadu Buhari’s approval.
The anti-graft agency alleges that Emefiele spent N18.96bn for the printing and swapping of new naira notes worth N684.5m without the necessary approvals.
According to the EFCC, Emefiele violated Section 19 of the CBN Act, 2007, by approving “the printing of 375,520,000 pieces of color-swapped N1,000 notes at the total cost of N11,052,068,062 without the recommendation of the Board of Central Bank and the strict approval of the President.”
During the trial, Umar, who joined the CBN 35 years ago and retired in July 2023, testified as the EFCC’s first witness. Led by EFCC prosecutor Rotimi Oyedepo (SAN), Umar explained that his department was instructed to draft a memo for the naira redesign in August 2022.
“The management of CBN directed my department to come up with a memo on the design of the naira note sometime in August 2022. We prepared the bill with the Committee of Governors and passed it through the line Deputy Governor Operations, which he forwarded to the Governor, and it was listed for consideration by the Committee of Governors,” Umar said.
The Committee of Governors, consisting of five members including the CBN Governor as chairman, reviewed the naira redesign memo on October 26, 2022.
However, Umar testified that the committee did not approve the proposal.
“We humbly requested the implementation of the amendment. (But) the extract from the COG did not approve item one and item three. While item two was modified to include the N200 denomination, the proposal for the exercise in 2023 wasn’t approved by the COG,” he added.
He further explained that the proper procedure required the Board of Directors to recommend the design and form to the President for approval, after which production of the currency would commence.
Justice Anenih admitted the Certified True Copy of the memorandum filed by the Operations Department as Exhibit A.
The EFCC charges also allege that Emefiele spent N4.4bn to print “color-swapped N500 notes” and N3.4bn to print “137,070 pieces of color-swapped N200 notes” between October 2022 and March 2023 in Abuja, violating Section 19 of the CBN Act.
Emefiele is also accused of unlawfully approving the withdrawal of N124.8bn from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation.
He has denied all the allegations, pleading not guilty.
