Buhari Should Be Tried Posthumously, Obazee Speaks on Alleged $6.2m CBN Fraud

● “Put them all in the dock” — Investigator tells court Emefiele, Mustapha, Maishanu must face trial

The courtroom went quiet.

President Tinubu’s Special Investigator, Jim Obazee, stood before Justice Hamza Muazu on Friday and dropped a bombshell: if Godwin Emefiele is on trial for the alleged $6.23 million CBN theft, then the late President Muhammadu Buhari should be too. Even if posthumously.

—“More than 10 people were involved”—

Obazee, the 15th prosecution witness, told the Abuja High Court that prosecuting only Emefiele was a cover-up.

“The situation in Nigeria is a very unfortunate one, especially for the federal government to have put only Emefiele on trial in an alleged fraud that involved more than 10 people,” he said.

The EFCC accuses Emefiele of criminal breach of trust, forgery, abuse of office and obtaining $6.2m by false pretence — money allegedly meant for international election observers for the 2023 general election. Emefiele has pleaded not guilty.

But Obazee said the net must be cast wider.

—“Buhari, Mustapha, Maishanu — charge them all”—

The investigator named names.

He demanded the trial of former SGF Boss Mustapha, saying Mustapha admitted to him that he signed the letter from his office requesting the $6.2m.

He wants the Abuja CBN branch manager prosecuted for releasing the funds without due diligence.

He wants Jibril Abubakar, who allegedly collected the money on the SGF’s authority, arrested. And he wants Bashirudeen Maishanu, a current CBN staff who he said confessed and refunded $856,500, charged too.

“For actions and inactions, Buhari ought to be charged and must be charged along Emefiele in this fraud, even if posthumously since national honours are given posthumously,” Obazee told the court.

He said Mustapha could not explain why the $6.2m was absent from his handover notes, and could not provide a list of the “foreign observers” who got the money.

—How the money vanished—

Obazee painted a picture of a heist done in plain sight.

The BVN portal at the Abuja branch was down for over a month. The N2.8bn equivalent was released without proper deposit. The account went negative. The transaction never appeared in the CBN’s 2022 audited statements or internal audit reports.

By the CBN Act, he argued, the money should never have left.

“Whatever you are doing to Emefiele by way of prosecution ought to have been done to Buhari, Mustapha, Maishanu and former board members of the CBN under Emefiele,” he said.

“If all of them are prosecuted, it will serve as deterrent and problems of Nigeria will be reduced and eliminated by 50 per cent.”

—The fallout—

Under cross-examination by Emefiele’s lawyer, Mathew Burka SAN, Obazee admitted he recovered no money from Emefiele directly. But he insisted that with CCTV and the BVN portal working, Emefiele should have known.

Prosecution counsel Rotimi Oyedepo SAN told the court the EFCC was closing its case with Obazee as PW15. The defence said it will file a no-case submission.

Justice Muazu adjourned until October 20 for adoption of addresses.

Obazee’s final words hung in the air: “I just hope that all of them would be lined up in this dock with Emefiele. And this must include Maishanu, who returned to me $856,500.”