Nigeria’s secret police are investigating central bank Governor Godwin Emefiele for alleged financial crimes related to the nation’s multibillion-dollar public lending programs, according to a court affidavit. The banker’s defenders say politicians opposed to recent currency reforms are behind the probe.
(Bloomberg) — Nigeria’s secret police are investigating central bank Governor Godwin Emefiele for alleged financial crimes related to the nation’s multibillion-dollar public lending programs, according to a court affidavit. The banker’s defenders say politicians opposed to recent currency reforms are behind the probe.
A State Security Service investigation has yielded “credible intelligence of suspicious activities” by Emefiele including money laundering, terror financing and misappropriation of funds, according to the previously unreported affidavit the agency filed in the capital, Abuja, last month and seen by Bloomberg. Emefiele didn’t respond to two emailed requests for comment while multiple phone calls and messages to the central bank’s spokesman weren’t answered.
The allegations come amid a breakdown in relations between the central bank and the SSS — which is similar to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation — that began to emerge in local media last month. Defenders of Emefiele say currency reforms introduced by the central bank to control the amount of cash in circulation have drawn powerful political enemies.
Read: Why Nigeria Is Clamping Down on Its Vast Cash Economy: QuickTake
The high-stakes confrontation has erupted in the run-up to presidential, gubernatorial and parliamentary elections scheduled to begin on Feb. 25. Voters in Africa’s most-populous country are often offered cash, food or clothing to persuade them to cast their ballots for particular candidates.
Justice John Tsoho rejected a request by the SSS for an arrest warrant on Dec. 9, stating that the agency failed to present any “concrete evidence” to support the allegations. However, his decision in a federal court also said that the agency can detain Emefiele without a court order if it “believes that the evidence available to it so far is sufficient.”
A week later, a non-profit organization called the Forum for Accountability and Good Leadership, or FAGL, filed a suit at a state court in Abuja arguing that Emefiele’s rights were under attack by the secret police.
Justice Maryam Hassan ruled in the second case on Dec. 29 that the SSS’s “continuous harassment” of the governor over “trumped up allegations of terrorism financing and fraudulent practices” was illegal. She also barred the agency from arresting or interrogating Emefiele in relation to his management of the economy unless it obtains permission from a superior court, according to her court order.
An SSS spokesman declined to comment when contacted by Bloomberg.
Emefiele has attended several interviews at SSS headquarters during the course of the investigation, the secret police said in its affidavit submitted to court on Dec. 23.
The probe uncovered “emerging facts pointing to the alleged mismanagement” of Central Bank of Nigeria programs by Emefiele that financially benefitted himself and other unidentified individuals, according to the SSS affidavit. The agency didn’t say when it started the investigation or expand on intelligence it claims to have linking the governor to terrorism financing.
One of the initiatives the SSS alleges was abused by Emefiele is the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme, through which the central bank disbursed 1.07 trillion naira ($2.4 billion) in loans to smallholder farmers to boost agricultural production.
The FAGL suit in his defense said unidentified “self-serving politicians” who are angered by central bank policies designed to reduce the amount of cash in circulation are working to “frame” the governor through baseless accusations. A trustee of FAGL declined to comment.
The bank is implementing a move announced by Emefiele in October to replace high-denomination bank notes. The CBN also introduced new limits last month on the amount of cash individuals and companies can withdraw from financial institutions.
This policy “is a serious blow” to politicians that have “set out plans to rig the 2023 general elections through vote buying and electoral fraud,” the FAGL told the court.
The SSS denied probing Emefiele “on the dictates or desire of any politician,” according to its affidavit. The secret police said in the filing that the CBN governor doesn’t have criminal immunity and it only initiated the first case to stop him interfering with the investigation.
Amid speculation in the Nigerian media in recent weeks that the SSS would arrest the governor once he returned from a trip abroad, the central bank’s spokesman issued a statement on Jan. 16 saying that Emefiele had returned to work in Nigeria “with renewed vigor to perform his duty.”
Emefiele was hired to lead the central bank in June 2014, a year before President Muhammadu Buhari came to power, and was reappointed to a second five-year term in May 2019. He has been one of the outgoing administration’s most influential figures in an unorthodox tenure during which the CBN has made major interventions in the economy, including propping up the naira, lending unprecedented sums to government and extending credit to multiple sectors. A spokesman for Buhari told Bloomberg to refer its questions to the SSS.
The governor also made a highly visible, if short-lived, foray into party politics in May, asking a federal court to permit him to remain in charge of the central bank while running to win the ruling party nomination for next month’s election. He abandoned those ambitions after Buhari, who cannot stand for reelection, ordered ministers and political appointees seeking to run for office to resign their posts.
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