*Confusion over appointment letter which still refers to Obazee as CEO of FRC
Mr. Jim Osayande Obazee, the former CEO of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria, who President Bola Ahmed Tinubu named as Special Investigator of the Central Bank of Nigeria and related entities on Friday has a detailed and comprehensive dossier on the suspended Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele, QUEST TIMES can report.
Authoritative sources said over the weekend that Obazee who was removed in controversial circumstances in 2017 by then President Muhammadu Buhari had presented a shocking series of information on how Emefiele ran the monetary policies of the country in the last 9 years to President Tinubu.
Obazee presented the dossier to Tinubu even before Emefiele was suspended but the President only recently decided to tap Obazee for the job of unraveling what had been going on at the CBN after realizing that the DSS might not be the most effective government agency to investigate Emefiele. DSS has held Emefiele for over a month and came up last week with an arraignment in court where he was charged on Firearms charges that has nothing to do with his role as CBN Governor.
But there were questions in government circles already whether Obazee would have the institutional backing to investigate the CBN and its suspended Governor since Obazee is no longer in charge of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria.
While the President has wide executive powers to make the appointment, watchers of government business say investigative powers of the Federal Government is better managed through the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation, the EFCC, ICPC, the Police or other legally designated government agencies including the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria.
But there is also a confusion over President Bola Tinubu’s letter appointing Obazee as Special Investigator. This is because the letter personally signed by the President on Friday July 28, 2023 appointing Obazee refers to him as Chief Executive Officer of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria.
The problem is Obazee had been removed from that office since January 2017 by President Muhammadu Buhari but Tinubu’s letter still referenced him as the CEO of the FRN more than 6 years after he had been removed.
An Aso Villa source told QUEST TIMES Sunday night that this might be carelessness of secretarial aides in the Office of the President indicating that the letter at least ought to have indicated that Obazee is a former CEO not to suggest he is still in the office.
But another observer indicated that it is just as possible that Tinubu may not even be aware that Obazee is referred to in the letter as CEO of the Financial Reporting Council.
Said another source “whose responsibility is it to have alerted the President that Obazee is no longer in that office?”