The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) practically emptied its
vaults apparently to finance the presidential campaign of
the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), sources conversant
with investigations into security spending in the last
administration have informed TheCable. TheCable had
earlier reported the extra-budgetary disbursement of N40
billion to the office of the national security adviser and
N20 billion to the Department of State Services (DSS) by the
CBN, but fresh revelations indicate that the monies were
released in dollar cash — contrary to all money laundering
regulations. They were taken directly from the dollar
reserve vaults of the central bank, TheCable understands.
Security sources disclosed that in August 2014, Godwin
Emefiele, the CBN governor, called a board meeting and
asked for an approval of N60 billion to support the security
services under a “special security intervention fund” he
intended to create. Emefiele, who is also chairman of the
board, told the members that the money was needed to
equip the military to fight the insurgency in the north-east
following a series of onslaughts by Boko Haram. Some
board members reportedly cautioned him against such an
audacious move, advising instead that the expenditure
should be tied to procurement, but he was said to have
rejected the advice. This was shortly after he had secured
approval from President Goodluck Jonathan to disburse
the funds. Sambo Dasuki, retired colonel and then NSA,
had twice requested for N60 billion in documents seen by
TheCable — and was only successful at third attempt
following Jonathan’s intervention. In the new documents
seen by TheCable, the former NSA regularly wrote to
Emefiele asking him to disburse the approved money in
hard currency equivalent, usually in tranches of N10
billion.
Investigators have now traced some of the monies
collected by the office of the NSA to the PDP presidential
campaign, with Raymond Dokpesi, chairman of AIT,
revealing that he collected N2.1 billion from the office to
undertake media publicity for Jonathan. Dasuki has said
not all the monies he received were for security,
maintaining that some were for NGOs.
However, questions have been raised on how CBN created
the security fund overnight to meet NSA’s requests. “What
the CBN did was to create an intervention fund, which it is
empowered to do by the CBN Act. That is why we have
aviation intervention fund, agriculture intervention fund,
all sorts, which are now being abused to take money out of
the system,” one of the sources said. A former minister
told TheCable that it is illegal for the CBN to pay raw
dollars to any government agency.
He said: “If the money was given to the NSA in naira, this
would be a case of the CBN printing money for the
government and adding to pressure on prices and
exchange rates. I was told a lot of this happened in many
instances and did a lot of damage to the economy. “If, on
the other hand, as it is being alleged in this case, the NSA
was given this money in cash forex, then a strong case can
be made for criminal activity by the CBN itself. In giving so
much cash, the CBN is itself involved in money laundering.
And by taking it from the central bank vaults, the
management of the central bank has effectively taken
foreign exchange from CBN reserves and given same to
the NSA with no questions asked.”
The way it was done, according to CBN insiders, “was that
the money was taken directly from CBN vaults without any
account being credited. It effectively did not go through the
due process. The accountant-general did not sign off as it is
the practice. “Money was just moved directly like it
happened under Gen. Sani Abacha when large amounts
were taken out of the CBN under the guise of financing
ECOMOG, the West African peace-keeping force. We know
where the bulk ended up.”
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