Nigeria’s Ex-Central Bank Boss Pleads Not Guilty to New Charges

(Bloomberg) -- Former Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Godwin Emefiele pleaded not guilty Monday to new allegations of foreign-currency infractions brought against him by one of the country’s finance watchdogs.

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The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission accused Emefiele of arbitrarily allocating about $2 billion in foreign exchange without bids and due process, it said in a fresh charge sheet with 26 allegations filed at the Lagos High Court in Ikeja. The move escalates the legal battle between the anti-graft agency and the former bank governor who’s also facing charges of fraud, corruption and criminal conspiracy in the nation’s capital, Abuja.

Emefiele, who appeared before Lagos High Court Judge Rahman Oshodi, pleaded not guilty to all of the accusations. Oshodi adjourned the case to Thursday, when he’ll rule on the former central banker’s bail application.

Soon after taking office in May, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu suspended the ex-central bank governor. Emefiele, whose naira redesign policy and foreign-exchange controls Tinubu criticized, was arrested weeks after his suspension and later arraigned in November at an Abuja court on fraud allegations.

Tinubu later ordered an investigation of the central bank’s operations and a report in December made more fraud accusations against Emefiele including holding hundreds of unauthorized overseas bank accounts, buying two banks through proxies and obtaining dollars through false claims. The allegations were added to his old charges in January. Emefiele has denied all the charges.

Olayemi Cardoso, who took over as governor in September, said in February that about $2.4 billion unmet foreign-currency claims on the central bank were fraudulent and dismissed them because of irregularities.

Cardoso cleared the valid backlogs amounting to $7 billion and increased the interest rate sharply, amid a raft of measures that boosted dollar inflows and has seen the naira appreciate 22% against the dollar since the end of February. The currency had lost about 70% of its value against the greenback from June until it started strengthening last month.

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