He said: “As publicly known the CBN was approached in 2015 by the National Economic Management Team and the National Economic Council chaired by the Vice President, to assist State Governments with Conditional Budget Support. This happened in the aftermath of the significant nose-dive in global oil prices and associated FAAC allocations.

“In order to ensure that ordinary Nigerian workers  got their salaries, pensions and gratuities, and that the economy continued to recover from recession, the Bank provided about N650 billion in loans at 9 per cent with a two-year grace period to 35 States of the Federation.

“These monies were distributed to the states monthly with documented approval of the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Presidency.

“In closing the Bank’s 2018 accounts, external auditors in their Draft  Account, erroneously classified about N150 billion of these loans as bad, which negatively affected the Bank’s Balance Sheet and shareholders fund.

“The selective  conversation being circulated was simply a discussion to ascertain why the auditors took that position and next steps to resolving it.

“Obviously, it soon became clear that a State Government loan cannot be classified as “bad” or “irrecoverable” when the State still exists and getting FAAC allocations.

“The Bank then reached out to the Federal Ministry of Finance and they jointly gave comfort  to the auditors who accepted in writing that these monies would be repaid.

“On this basis, the auditors reversed the negative entry and the certified that the CBN’s 2018 accounts were a true reflection of the State of Affairs.”

The statement ended with Okoroafor saying that Emefiele had “no account in Dubai or anywhere in the world and would never convert the funds of CBN for personal use. Not in the past, not now and not ever” while urging Nigerians to disregard the audio and continue to trust that the Bank is doing everything it could to represent their interests in the best possible way.” He stated that efforts to malign the CBN governor’s character and integrity will never stand.

Though the bank threatened to ‘pursue every legal means to bring the perpetrators to justice’, nothing was heard of the matter till date.

It was not long thereafter that the CBN’s governor’s foray into the murky waters of politics became public knowledge. While Nigerians were not averse to his contesting political positions, all the more than a few persons asked for was for the chief monetary officer to resign his position, and squarely politics, but he blatantly refused. And sought court ruling to enable him run while retaining his office.

Across the length and breadth of Nigeria’s political circle therefore, pleas and knocks began flooding in, asking for the immediate resignation of the Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, for venturing into partisan politics.

His actions were completely against the rules of the game, as he had already purchased the expression of interest and nomination forms of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) valued at N100 million to contest the primaries, thereby contravening the CBN Act of 2007 and the Civil Service Rules, which stipulate that no public officer will engage in another job, whether paid or not, or present himself for any elective position while still in service.

But Emefiele claimed that the forms were purchased for him by three groups without his consent, and that he wasn’t interested, but only focused on strengthening the nation’s economy amid calls. The groups, according to report were the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria, Friends of Emefiele and Emefiele Support Group. The report added that the group said Emefiele is the only responsible and responsive person to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari at the 2023 general election.

The CBN governors denial, was dismissed by a cross section of Nigeria as lame, and not in tandem with his body actions, wondering why he went to court to uphold his candidacy. The political stakeholders and social analysts therefore, condemned him for taking the path of politics while still in office, adding that the story of groups buying forms for him was unrealistic. They alleged that the CBN boss was totally aware of the process, and is feeding Nigerians with tales of unawareness.

It would be recalled that earlier before now, Nigerians have expressed concern over the way the apex bank boss was frolicking with politicians, and making utterances that suggest his interest in politics, and called for either his voluntary resignation or be sacked by President Muhammadu Buhari. Consequently, the eventual purchase of the forms did not come as a surprise to many when it was announced on Friday t.

Earlier in February, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential aspirant, who is now the Director of Strategic Communications of the party’s Presidential Campaign Council, Chief Dele Momodu, had warned of the possibility of the nation’s number one banker delving into partisan politics following his utterances and body languages, and asked the CBN Governor to resign honorably for dabbling into politics while still in office as well as for magnitudes of failures recorded under his watch.

In the press release which was exclusively made available to The Boss, Momodu accused the CBN boss of supervising an economy that has so far nosedived.

“The chicanery of a Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele dabbling into politics while still in office

“While it is the right of every Nigerian to aspire to the highest office, it is a joke carried too far for a  Central Bank Governor to remain in office while he and his well known sponsors are seeking to hijack the political process.

“Under Emefiele’s watch, Nigerian economy has nosedived yet he and his collaborators seek to deceive Nigerians that all is well. Let me say categorically that Nigeria can never be bought by a few individuals because they want to protect themselves,” Momodu said.

Echoing Momodu’s stand, a popular online medium, shortly after, called for the resignation of the CBN governor in its editorial commentary, noting that “It is our considered view that the statutory independence granted the Central Bank and its governor is compromised, if not totally eroded, when a sitting and serving Governor of the Bank becomes a closet politician angling or lobbying to be appointed to or to contest for a partisan political office. Whether he openly makes known his partisan political interest or does so through shadow proxies is immaterial.”

By the provisions of sections 9 and 11(2)(c) of the CBN Act, a Governor, Deputy Governor or Director ceases to hold office if

a. He does not devote his full time to the service of the bank;
b. Engages in full or part time vocation like politics;
c. Engages in a personal cause (like politics) which (i) conflicts with his full time duties to the bank, or (ii) detracts from his full time duties to the bank; and
d. Is guilty of serious misconduct in relation to his duties under the Act.

As a result, the CBN’s governor’s participation in politics has been termed a breach of each of these sub-heads, and consequently, deserved to be sacked if he fails to resign.

In Section 11(3) of the same Act, it is required of the Governor or a Deputy Governor of the CBN to give three months notice of his intention to resign. Ideally, Emefiele should have done this before picking up membership of APC not to mention the Presidential nomination form.

Either way, there is an issue of eligibility hanging on the the apex bank boss. Stakeholders are of the opinion that ‘if Emefiele is not an APC member, he can’t contest now because he would fall foul of the requisite membership period. If he is, then he is conflicted under the Act and should resign or be deemed to have ceased to hold office.’

This is not the first time Emefiele has been called upon to resign.

In May 2019, SaharaReporters made public a phone conversation of Emefiele; his deputy, Edward Lametek Adamu; Director for Finance, Dayo M. Arowosegbe and one of the Special Advisers to the CBN Governor, Emmanuel Ukeje discussing how to cover up the loss of over N500 billion stolen from the CBN in a private investment that collapsed. The CBN accepted the authenticity of the audio conversation, but said no money was missing from the bank.

In September of the same year, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) asked the CBN governor to resign over allegations of overseeing looting of funds in the nation’s apex bank.

According to the PDP, the allegations were based on the affirmations from the then Secretary of the National Caretaker Committee of the APC, Senator John Akpan Udoedehe during a Channels TV programme.

“The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) demands the immediate resignation and prosecution of the Governor of the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN) Godwin Emefiele going by allegations by the All Progressives Congress (APC) that he superintended over massive looting of funds in the CBN.

“Our party calls on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to immediately invite Emefiele for questioning over allegations by the National Secretary of the illegal APC National Caretaker Committee, Senator John Akpan Udoedehe, that the CBN governor supervised over the pillaging of the nation’s vaults under his watch,” the party had said.

“Our party insists that beyond Akpan Udoedehe’s allegation, the tenure of Emefiele as CBN governor under the APC administration has witnessed colossal failures of monetary and fiscal policies, requiring him to vacate the office and hand himself over for investigation.

“It is instructive to note that when Emefiele took over office as CBN Governor in 2014, naira exchanged for N164 to a dollar. Today, in the hands of Emefiele and the APC, the naira has tumbled to a near N600 to a dollar, putting the nation’s economy on its knees.

“Painfully, under the leadership of Emefiele, the CBN has failed in its core mandate of managing the economy and took a dive into propaganda with claims that do not reflect the harsh economic reality on the ground,” it had added.

Other notable personalities followed up, and called for the resignation of the nation’s number one banker. Some of them were the Governor of Ondo State, Rotimi Akeredolu, the Governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal among many others with the PDP asking for his arrest.

PDP’s allegation read in part: “Importantly, Section 030502 (g) of the Rule lists “engaging in partisan political activities’ as SERIOUS ACT OF MISCONDUCT.

Emefiele’s involvement in politics without resigning as CBN Governor therefore amounts to gross misconduct in contravention of Section 11 2 (2)(c) of the CBN Act.

Now that Mr. Emefiele has joined politics and reportedly obtained the N100 million Presidential aspirant form from the APC, he cannot continue to resume at the CBN which is the commonwealth of our nation.

By this Mr. Emefiele has become a clear and present danger to the health, integrity and reputation of the CBN and our nation’s financial sector. His continued stay as CBN Governor will further destroy investors’ confidence in the integrity of our nation’s financial regulatory Institution.

Mr. Emefiele’s involvement in partisan politics while still holding office as CBN Governor underpins the impunity, lawlessness and recklessness of the Muhammadu Buhari-led APC administration. It further confirms that the CBN under Emefiele has all along been the finance department of the APC.

It is now evident that the summersault of the economy under Mr. Emefiele as CBN Governor has been influenced by a personal partisan interest for which the CBN under his watch allegedly allowed multiple leakages in our financial regulations through discriminatory exchange rate policies and nebulous subsidies to funnel billons of naira to political lackies to fund a presidential ambition.

This also explains why under Emefiele, the CBN which is supposed to be the bankers’ bank continues to engage in fraudulent retail banking services under ill-defined economic intervention programmes to plunder the treasury.

The tsunamic macro-economic and fiscal policies of the CBN under Emefiele brought untold hardship to the productive and service sectors of our nation’s economy with consequential negative effect on the lives of our citizens.

It is provocative that instead of being remorseful, Mr. Emefiele is even insulting the sensibilities of Nigerians by seeking the office of the President while still holding office as CBN Governor.

The PDP points to reports in the public space of how Emefiele’s agents through corrupt practices, including manipulation of exchange rate, allegedly amassed sum close to $1 billion dollar which is already being deployed by the purchase of hundreds of Emefiele branded campaign vehicles in the colours of the APC in furtherance of a lavish Presidential campaign.

The direct consequences of such atrocious regime in the CBN under Emefiele is the collapse of our naira from N197 to N600 to a dollar, the crippling of our productive sector, multiple economic recession, increased poverty, inflation and unemployment rates, high costs of living and excruciating hardship to our citizens.

It is indeed saddening that President Muhammadu Buhari, who promised zero tolerance for corruption will enable, encourage and condone such atrocious regime in the CBN where our economy is opened to fraudulent pillaging to promote a political ambition.

Our Party stands with Nigerians in demanding the immediate arrest, investigation and prosecution of Mr. Emefiele by security and anti-graft agencies, particularly the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for alleged financial malfeasance and abuse of office in the CBN under his watch.

As Nigerians we are determined to confront this evil. We wish Mr. Emefiele well in his new found but ill-fated political vocation but we demand that he must be brought to account for the activities that he undertook, supervised and superintended over the years that he has been at the helm of affairs at the CBN and for which our economy is in comatose.

The PDP calls on all Nigerians; the Civil Society, Students, Organized Labour, the Media and all lovers of good governance to rise up as the PDP takes drastic actions in leading the charge to defend the integrity of the CBN, Rule of Law and ensure that those who brought our economy to its knees face the wrath of the law.”

But like one sold to his ambition, Emefiele went to court, represented by eminent jurist and rights activist, Mike Ozekhome, but the courts came to the rescue, denying him of the request to run without resigning. The Abuja Federal High Court failed to grant the requests for an order to prevent attempts to stop him from the 2023 Presidency.

Then in October, 2022, Emefiele proposed to redesign the higher denominations of the nation’s currency during an announcement contained in a statement released by the Central during a press briefing in Abuja. The bank said it is undertaking the designing project to have control of the currency in circulation, manage inflation, as well as tackle counterfeiting. He noted that the targeted notes are N200, N500, and N1000, while release into the Nigerian monetary space will start on December 15, 2022, and then by January 31, 2023, the existing notes will be completely phased out of circulation.

Emefiele hinted as part of the many reasons for the action, that the currency management has faced several daunting challenges that have continued to escalate in scale and sophistication with attendant and unintended consequences for the integrity of both the CBN and the country.

However, stakeholders, analysts and the general public wondered if the CBN and Emefiele were well advised as a cross section of Nigerians believe that the project could be a dangerous gamble, seeing that there are concerns the move may lead to confusion as rural population may find it difficult to change their currency notes within the given time among a whole lot of consequences, which the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, who said she was not aware of the move, hinted.

In his address while making public the intention of the CBN, which permission, he said has been given by President Buhari, Emefiele said: “These challenges primarily include: Significant hoarding of banknotes by members of the public, with statistics showing that over 85 percent of currency in circulation are outside the vaults of commercial banks,” he said.

“To be more specific, as at the end of September 2022, available data at the CBN indicate that N2.73 Trillion out of the N3.23 trillion currency in circulation, was outside the vaults of Commercial Banks across the country; and supposedly held by the public.

“Evidently, currency in circulation has more than doubled since 2015; rising from N1.46 trillion in December 2015 to N3.23 trillion in September 2022. This is a worrisome trend that cannot be allowed to continue.”

Emefiele’s catalogue of excuses regarding why the existing naira notes must be phased out includes the fact that the increase in the hoarding of currency in circulation has affected inflation, which hit a 17-year high in September, in addition to the menace of worsening shortage of clean and fit banknotes with attendant negative perception of the CBN and increased risk to financial stability.

The CBN governor also listed that the redistribution of the new notes will discourage ransom payment as large volumes of money won’t be accessed because the amount of cash in circulation will be drastically reduced just as it will help deepen CBN’s drive to entrench cashless economy as it will be complemented by increased minting of the eNaira.

“Also, in view of the prevailing level of security situation in the country, the CBN is convinced that the incidents of terrorism and kidnapping would be minimized as access to the large volume of money outside the banking system used as source of funds for ransom payments will begin to dry up.

“This will further rein in the currency outside the banking system into the banking system thereby making monetary policy more efficacious,” Emefiele said.

As expected, the CBN governor’s initiative has received knocks and kudos from across the length and breadth of the country with stakeholders voicing their thoughts at how the redesigning of the naira will impact on the economy, and more importantly on the lives of the citizens.

But how feasible the lofty ideas the CBN has expressed in this initiative is remains a mirage and gamble as most bodies have risen in condemnation of the process.

The first of the misadventure of the naira redesigning is the denial of the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning that they are not aware of the planned exercise. The Minister, Zainab Ahmed, who commented on the policy in response to questions raised by senators during the 2023 budget defence session she had with the Senate Committee on Finance, chaired by Senator Solomon Olamilekan, dissociated herself from the Naira redesign policy.

The Minister went ahead to warn the CBN of consequences that may arise from the policy just as the Senate intoned that barely two days after the announcement of the policy by the CBN, the negative effect was already being experienced in the country’s forex. The Senate noted that just bare 48 hours later, the value of the Naira to a US dollar has risen from N740 to N788 due to rush in exchange of stashed Naira Notes for foreign currencies, particularly the dollar.

In their argument, the senators were of the opinion that the policy, a well-conceived one, but has timing deficiency, going by the realities on ground. They feared that the naira may fall to as low as N1,000 to a US dollar before January 31, 2023 fixed for full implementation of the policy.

On their part, the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) said that the Central Bank of Nigeria’s plan to redesign the higher currency notes is not an economic priority for the country, considering the current challenges facing the economy.

The Executive Director of Centre, Auwal Musa, in a statement said that there are more pressing needs that the CBN ought to attend to, to set the economy on the path of revival, adding that concerned reactions from Nigerians was proof that the decision is a misplaced priority on the part of the CBN.

He said, “Firstly, the CBN’s decision to redesign and reissue new 200, 500 and 1000 notes is not an economic priority and barely a solution to addressing Nigeria’s poor monetary policy challenges and growing economic woes.

“Especially at a time when the country is grappling with huge fiscal deficits, a free fall of the naira, soaring inflation rates, multiple forex rates and rising borrowing costs. The reasons for this decision seem no different from those given for the forex demand management strategy which resulted in a non-satisfactory conclusion as the artificially low exchange rate failed to be as reflective of the market as possible to improve supply, but this time it only threatens damning economic consequences for Nigerians.

“The public perception that this decision holds no value proposition for the economy, reiterates the tendency of the CBN to be distracted from fulfilling priority statutory obligations,” he said.