CBN under Emefiele awarded contracts to his wife, her relative, says EFCC witness

Agboro Omowera, an investigator with the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), says 10 officials of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), including Godwin Emefiele, former governor of the bank, minuted on documents approving the award of multi-million naira contracts to two companies.

Omowera spoke on Monday when he appeared as a witness for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) before a federal capital territory (FCT) high court in Maitama, Abuja.

Emefiele is facing a 20-count amended charge bordering on alleged criminal breach of trust, forgery, conspiracy to commit forgery, procurement fraud and conspiracy to commit a felony.

The EFCC accused Emefiele of using his position to confer a corrupt advantage on April 1616 Investment Limited, a company owned by Saadatu Yaro, a staff of the CBN and another company, Architekon Nigeria Limited.

The former CBN governor was also alleged to have conferred a corrupt advantage on his wife, Margaret, and brother-in-law by approving payments in favour of Architekon Nigeria Ltd, where both of them are directors.

Giving evidence as the seventh prosecution witness at the court session on Monday, Omowera said 10 persons acted on the documents with which the contracts were awarded.

He told the court that Yaro’s company got the contract to supply over 45 Toyota Hilux Vehicles to the CBN, with the prices ranging from N854,700,000, to N99,900,000.

Though the witness admitted that Emefiele did not award any contract to himself, he said his team discovered that the company where his wife owned majority shares started enjoying the patronage of the CBN after the defendant became its governor in 2014.

Asked why only Emefiele was singled out for trial since other officials of the apex bank approved the contracts, the witness said it was probably because he was the head of CBN at the time and the buck stopped at his table. 

“There are 10 minutes and one approval, so one person takes the responsibility,” he said.

“He (Emefiele) is the head of the CBN and the buck stops on his table.”

Speaking further about the contracts, the witness stated that April 1616 Investment Limited was incorporated a few days after Yaro’s employment with the CBN.

He noted that she was posted to the CBN Lagos office.

“In 2018, the company started to enjoy the patronage of the CBN in the procurement of particular vehicles, Toyota branded motors,” he said.

“During the period, this company was awarded about 45 different contracts.

“My lord, we were curious as investigators, how it was possible for a company that has no track record to continually win bids against Toyota-accredited bids.

“We tried to confirm whether this company was accredited by Toyota and to our surprise, it was not among the accredited bidders.”

Under cross-examination by Mathew Burkaa, counsel to Emefiele, the witness said the former CBN governor did not confer corrupt advantage on himself.

Asked if his team interviewed other persons at the CBN to determine whether the contracts were executed, the witness said they did, but that he could not remember if the execution of the contracts was part of what was contained in their investigative report.

The witness further admitted that he did not visit the CBN governor’s residence in Lagos during the investigation to determine whether the contract that was awarded to Architecom Nigeria Ltd was executed or not.

He equally admitted that Emefiele was not a shareholder, director or signatory to the bank accounts belonging to either April 1616 or Architecom.

The trial has been adjourned to April 25 for continuation.