The trial of the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, continued on Tuesday with Ahmed Umar, a former Director of Operations at the bank, testifying that the naira redesign initiated by Emefiele in late 2022 did not have the approval of the Committee of Governors.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had arraigned Emefiele before Justice Maryanne Anenih of the Federal Capital Territory High Court on May 15, on charges related to the unlawful redesign and printing of new naira notes. The EFCC accused Emefiele of carrying out the policy without the approval of the CBN Board and President Muhammadu Buhari, spending N18.96 billion for printing and swapping new naira notes worth N684.5 million.
In the charge marked CR/264/2024, the EFCC alleged that Emefiele, “knowingly disobeying the direction of Section 19 of the CBN Act, 2007,” approved “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, Federal Republic of Nigeria, among other things.”
During the trial’s opening on Tuesday, the EFCC called ex-CBN Director of Operations, Umar, as its first witness. Led in evidence by EFCC prosecutor Rotimi Oyedepo (SAN), Umar testified that in 2022, his department was directed to come up with the new naira design. He stated, “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, who joined the CBN 35 years ago and retired in July 2023, explained that the Committee of Governors comprised five members, including the CBN Governor as chairman. He informed the court that the naira redesign memo was presented to the Committee of Governors on October 26, 2022, but it was not approved.
Umar elaborated, “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 N200 denomination, the proposal for the exercise in 2023 wasn’t approved by the COG. The procedure requires the Board of Directors to recommend to the President for design and form. The design shall be contained in the currency after the approval of the President, then the production of the currency will commence.”
Justice Anenih admitted the Certified True Copy of the memorandum filed by the Operations Department as Exhibit A. The EFCC accused Emefiele of spending N4.4 billion to print “color-swapped N500 notes” and N3.4 billion to print “137,070 pieces of colored N200 notes.” These actions allegedly took place between October 2022 and March 2023 in Abuja, violating Section 19 of the CBN Act.
The EFCC alleged that Emefiele disobeyed the law with the intent to harm the public through the naira swap policy’s implementation. Additionally, Emefiele was accused of unlawfully approving the withdrawal of N124.8 billion from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation. Emefiele denied all allegations and pleaded not guilty.