Fresh charge: Emefiele printed N684.5m with N18.9bn

Former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has landed in another trouble in addition to the series of litigations against him.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has slammed a fresh charge on Emefiele for approving N684,590,000 at the rate of N18.96 billion without the recommendation of the Board of Central Bank and the strict approval of the President.

The former CBN governor is to be arraigned on April 30 before Justice Maryann Anenih of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in the fresh four-count charge.

The commission also accused Emefiele of unlawfully approving the withdrawal of N124.8 billion from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation.

Already, Emefiele had been arraigned on six counts of procurement fraud, he was also arraigned for an alleged $4.5 billion and N2.8 billion fraud.

The new charge, dated April 2 and marked CR/264/2024 was filed by Rotimi Oyedepo (SAN).

ICYM: How I collected over $3m cash for Emefiele – CBN official

The counts read: “That you Godwin Ifeanyi Emefiele between the 19th day of October 2022 and 5th March 2023 in Abuja, knowingly disobeyed the direction of Section 19 of the CBN Act, 2007, by approving the printing of 375,520,000.00 pieces of colour swapped N1,000, 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, Federal Republic of Nigeria which conduct of yours caused injury to the public and you thereby committed an offence.

“That you, Godwin Ifeanyi Emefiele, between the 19th of October 2022 and 5th March 2023 in Abuja, knowingly disobeyed the direction of Section 19 of the Central Bank of Nigeria Act, 2007, by approving the printing of 172,000,000 pieces of colour swapped N500 notes, at the total cost of N4,471,066,040 without the recommendation of the Board of Central Bank and the strict approval of the President, Federal Republic of Nigeria which conduct of yours caused injury to the public and you thereby committed an offence.

“That you Godwin Ifeanyi Emefiele between the 19th day of October 2022 and 5th March 2023 in Abuja, knowingly disobeyed the direction of Section 19 of the CBN Act, 2007, by approving the printing of 137,070,000 pieces of colour-swapped N200 note, at the total cost of N3,441,005,280 without the recommendation of the Board of Central Bank and the strict approval of the President, Federal Republic of Nigeria which conduct of yours caused injury to the public and you thereby committed an offence.”

“That you, Godwin Ifeanyi Emefiele, on or about the 7th day of October 2020, in Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, knowingly disobeyed the direction of Section 80 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (As Amended), by approving the withdrawal of the total sum of N124,860,227,865.16 from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation in a manner not prescribed by the National Assembly, which conduct of yours caused injury to the public and you thereby committed an offence.”

The Star