A prosecution witness told the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court in Abuja on Thursday how the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) debited N124.86 billion from the Consolidated Revenue Account (CRA) without the National Assembly’s approval during Godwin Emefiele’s time as the CBN governor.
Hamisu Abdullahi, a deputy director working at CBN’s Domestic Settlement Division handling interbank transactions, said the money was used to settle the CBN’s “internal debts”.
Mr Hamisu testified as the ninth prosecution witness in the trial of Mr Emefiele on various charges of illegal activities, including the alleged unlawful redesign of the naira notes.
The case is one in a series Mr Emefiele has been facing since his removal from office in June 2023 over corruption allegations and sundry malfeasances.
Led in evidence by prosecution lawyer A.O. Mohammed on Thursday, the witness said the CBN incurred the N124.86 billion internal debts from various directives it received from the Federal Government to pay certain agencies without providing funds for the payments.
According to Mr Hamisu, this created a huge debt on CBN’s internal books. He said the accumulated unpaid bills added up to N124.86 billion.
To meet the demands, he said Mr Emefiele turned to the Consolidated Revenue Account, which is the primary treasury where all public income is gathered and from which almost all government expenditure is paid.
The CRA is governed by a golden rule: no money can be withdrawn from the account except in a manner prescribed by the National Assembly, usually through an Appropriation Act or budget.
But without such parliamentary approval, Mr Emefiele, according to the witness, directed that the sum of N124.86 billion (N124,860,227,865.16) be debited from the CRA.
He also said there was no presidential approval for the debit from the CRA, although he did not count that against Mr Emefiele as wrongdoing.
The witness said Mr Emefiele, in a minute, directed the Deputy Governor in charge of Operations to debit the CRA and credit the proceeds into the accounts housing the long-outstanding debts.
Giving a breakdown of its distribution, the witness said the pilgrimage subsidy account was credited with N43 billion.
He said the Federal Government receivable account was credited twice with N43 billion and N38.6 billion.
Explaining further, Mr Hamisu said the CBN usually receives requests for concessionary rates in the sale of foreign exchange for Muslim and Christian pilgrims.
He said when external auditors raised concerns about the debit, they were told that the funds were used to address long-outstanding debts.
He also said the same explanation was offered to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) during its investigations into Mr Emefiele’s activities.
Mr Emefiele is standing trial on four counts, including illegal redesign of naira notes, disobedience to the direction of law, and illegal act causing injury to the public.
The former CBN governor, who was removed by President Bola Tinubu in June 2023 after over eight years in office, denied the charges.
Mr Hamisu gave details of Mr Emefiele’s approving memo in his testimony on Thursday.
The witness said Jim Obazee, a special investigator, requested an explanation on the memo that authorised the debit of N124.86 billion from the CRA.
