A special investigator, Jim Obazee, in a report that was released to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has indicted some of former President Muhammadu Buhari’s appointees, who connived with Godwin Emefiele to loot the country’s money.
According to Premium Times, it was reported that while he was speaking on the “fraudulent use of “Ways and Means”, he said Section 38 of the CBN Act, 2007 permits the CBN to provide temporary advances to the Federal Government to address temporary budget revenue shortfalls, subject to interest, which is known as “Ways and Means,” this section stipulates that such advances must be repaid by the conclusion of the Federal Government’s financial year in which they were granted, and the failure to repay within the specified timeframe prohibits the CBN from granting such advances in subsequent years. Importantly, repayment methods are restricted to exclude the use of Promissory notes, Securitisation, or the issuance of Treasury Bills.
The report reads, “It was a surprise, Mr President, that under the last administration, the noble outlet became a huge source of fraudulent drain pipe for the then Minister of Finance, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, the erstwhile CBN Governor, all the four deputy CBN Governors (under the guise of COG), the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, the Accountant General of the Federation and even the then Chief of Staff, In an instance, they padded what the former President Muhammadu Buhari approved with N198,963,162,187 (approximating an approval of N801,036,937,813 to N1 trillion).”
Obazee reported that some instances emerged, where former President Muhammadu Buhari did not grant approval, yet N500 billion was taken and debited to Ways and Means. Shockingly, the former CBN Governor and his four deputy Governors allegedly collaborated to steal funds by forcefully withdrawing money from the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) account and charging it to “Ways and Means,” and they reportedly labeled this as a Presidential subsidy and expanded the “Ways and Means” portfolio in order to cover up the act.
The report further alleged that the CBN officers, including the Acting CBN Governor at the time, were unable to produce Presidential Approval for many expenses labeled as “Ways and Means,” and when they were questioned about the breakdown of the presented N22,719,703,774,306.90 to the 9th National Assembly for unauthorized securitization of “Ways and Means” financing, they could only partially explain N9.2tn. An unexplained sum of N6,678,874,321,541,97 further indicated collusion, fraud, and theft from the country’s commonwealth by officers of the past administration, and the former CBN Governor with the aid of civil servants.
Concluding, the report reads, “The true position of the ‘Ways and Means’ as documented from the reconciliation between the CBN and the Ministry of Finance at the time, is N4,449,149,411,584.54.”