On Friday, Bayo Onanuga, the Special Adviser on Information and Strategy to President Bola Tinubu, stated that Tunde Sabiu, nephew to former President Muhammadu Buhari, sold the idea of redesigning the naira notes to the former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele.
In a post on his X (formerly Twitter) page, Onanuga, quoting the report submitted by the Special Investigator on the CBN led by Jim Obaze, wrote, “The investigator found that Buhari didn’t approve of the naira redesign. It was Tunde Sabiu who first told Emefiele in September 2022 to consider the redesign of the naira. On October 6, 2022, Emefiele wrote to Buhari that he wanted to redesign and reconfigure N1000, N500, and N200 notes.
“The former President tagged along but did not approve the redesign as required by law. Buhari merely approved that the currency be printed in Nigeria. The redesign was only mentioned to the board of the CBN on December 15, 2022, after Emefiele had awarded the contract to the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Plc on October 31, 2022,’’ the documents noted.
Section 38 of the CBN Act, 2007, allows the CBN to grant temporary advances to the Federal Government in respect of the temporary deficiency of budget revenue at an interest. This is commonly referred to as ‘Ways and Means.’
“The said Section also provides that such an advance is to be repaid by the end of the Federal Government financial year in which they are granted; otherwise, the CBN shall be stopped from granting such advances in subsequent years. The advance is never to be repaid by way of Promissory note, Securitisation nor issuance of Treasury Bills, etc.”
“It was a surprise, Mr. President, that under the last administration, the noble outlet became a huge source of fraudulent drainpipe 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 former President Muhammadu Buhari approved with N198,963,162,187 (approximating an approval of N801,036,937,813 to N1 trillion). How Emefiele and the gang looted the CBN. A story that will make us cry for our dear country.”