By Oluwatosin Maliki
The special investigators committee appointed by President Bola Tinubu has so far invited 20 persons in connection with the past CBN Governor Emefiele and the apex bank for questioning.
It was gathered that four deputy governors of the apex bank, some directors and some drivers, were among the 20 persons invited for interrogation.
A source disclosed that the drivers of the former CBN governor were interviewed because “they were the ones who carried the big men around.”
In addition, the source said, “Many directors, especially the ones directly under the deputy governors, were interviewed”.
Similarly, “They have also invited officials of the Nigeria Security Printing and Minting Company (NSPMC) and those in charge of all those intervention programmes were also invited.”
Also, some bank officials of NIRSAL Microfinance Bank (NMFB), Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS), were summoned.
The special investigators on Friday, during further investigations, paid a low-key visit to the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL Plc).
Although, no one was arrested base on the visit.
According to sources, Shuaib Ahmed, the Executive Secretary of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRC), and his deputy, Iheanyi Anyahara, were invited to appear before the panel in connection with the preparation of the CBN audited financial statements from 2016 to 2022.
One source explained, “Some of those summoned are detained till the following day if their interrogation takes longer than anticipated or if they need some documents from their office and they did not bring them along. They will be detained while they send for the documents”.
“Also if they are interrogating someone and he is being linked with someone else, the person is kept there till they invite the other person, and they will be interrogated separately”
“We can’t put a number to those invited yet. Let’s just say close to 20 have been invited”.
It is speculated that the special investigator’s committee might also invite retired directors of the apex bank.