Umar mentioned this while he was giving his testimony in the ongoing trial of the immediate-past Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria on Tuesday.
A former Director of Operations at the Central Bank of Nigeria, Ahmed Umar, has told the court that the naira redesign embarked upon by former CBN, Godwin Emefiele, in late 2022 did not have the approval of the Committee of Governors.
Umar mentioned this while he was giving his testimony in the ongoing trial of the immediate-past Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria on Tuesday.
SaharaReporters had reported how the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission had on May 15 charged Emefiele before Justice Maryanne Anenih of the Federal Capital Territory High Court on charges bordering on alleged unlawful redesign and printing of the new naira notes.
The anti-graft agency accused Emefiele, in the charge marked CR/264/2024, of carrying out the naira redesign policy without the approval of the CBN Board and former president, Muhammadu Buhari.
The anti-graft agency said without the approval of the CBN Board and Buhari, Emefiele spent N18.96billion for the printing and swapping of new naira notes worth N684.5million.
It alleged that Emefiele, “knowingly disobeying the direction of Section 19 of the CBN Act, 2007” approved “the printing of N375,520,000 pieces of colour swapped N1,000 notes, at the total cost of N11,052, 068,062 without the recommendation of the Board of Central Bank and the strict approval of the President, Federal Republic of Nigeria, among other things.”
At the trial opening on Tuesday, the EFCC fielded ex-CBN Director of Operations, Umar, as its first witness.
Umar told the court that in 2022, his department was asked to create a new design for the naira while being led in testimony by EFCC prosecutor Rotimi Oyedepo (SAN).
He said, “The management of CBN directed my department to come up with a memo on the design of the naira note sometime in August 2022.
“We prepared the bill with the Committee of Governors and passed it through the line Deputy Governor Operations, which he forwarded to the Governor and it was listed for consideration by the Committee of Governors.”
The ex-director, who told the court he joined the CBN 35 years ago and retired in July 2023, stated that the Committee of Governors was made up of five members, with the CBN Governor serving as chairman.
The witness told the court that the naira redesign memo was brought to the Committee of Governors for consideration/review on October 26, 2022, but it was not approved.
Umar continued, “We humbly requested the implementation of the amendment. (But) the extract from the COG did not approve item one and item three. While item two was modified to include N200 denomination, the proposal for the exercise in 2023 wasn’t approved by the COG.
“The procedure requires the Board of Directors to recommend to the President for design and form.
“The design shall be contained in the currency after the approval of the President then the production of the currency will commence.”
Justice Anenih, admitted in evidence, the Certified True Copy of the memorandum filed by the Operations Department and marked it as Exhibit A.
The EFCC, in the charges, accused Emefiele of spending N4.4billion to print “coloured swapped N500 notes.”
According to the EFCC, Emefiele spent N3.4billion to print “137,070 pieces of coloured N200 notes.”
The EFCC said Emefiele carried out the alleged actions between October 2022 and March 2023 in Abuja in clear violation of Section 19 of the CBN Act.