The criminal prosecution of Godwin Emefiele, the embattled former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), took a dramatic turn on Thursday, July 2, 2026, as an investigation chief openly characterized the controversial withdrawal of $6,230,000 from the apex bank’s vault as a coordinated heist.
Okpoziakpo Eloho, a Commissioner of Police attached to the Fraud Unit at the Force Headquarters in Abuja, gave this testimony while appearing as the fourteenth prosecution witness before Justice H. Muazu of the Federal Capital Territory High Court sitting in Maitama.
Testifying under the guidance of the prosecution counsel and Director of Public Prosecution, Rotimi Oyedepo, SAN, the witness stated that the millions of dollars removed from the CBN under the guise of funding a foreign election observer mission was “pure theft.”
The senior police officer detailed how the entire sum was completely drained from the treasury after investigators uncovered the explicit endorsement of the ex-central bank chief on the disbursement files.
Eloho insisted that the true intent behind creating the official payment memo was simply to plunder the state resources, adding that the funds were “stolen, otherwise obtained under false pretence.”
The high-stakes financial trial further exposed how official machinery was allegedly manipulated to pull off the fraud. While reviewing the case evidence, Eloho pointed directly to a specific document, marked as Exhibit PD5, which carried the title of a presidential directive concerning the foreign election observer delegation.
Following a meticulous review by his special detective squad, the witness informed the court that the paperwork was a complete sham designed to camouflage an illegal operation, declaring that “our finding with regards to PD5 is that it is all fraud.”
He, however, noted that the state did not suffer a total loss, revealing that the federal investigators successfully intercepted and made recoveries of about $800,000 from the diverted cash.
During the aggressive cross-examination led by the defense attorney, Mathew Burka, SAN, the prosecution witness maintained that Emefiele held ultimate executive control over the apex bank’s resources during his tenure.
The proceedings took a more startling turn when the witness shed light on the high-level forgery involved in the scheme, explaining that a special investigator had interviewed Boss Mustapha, the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF).
Although the payment requests heavily relied on correspondences supposedly coming from the office of the SGF, the witness testified that Mustapha vehemently disowned the signature on the authorization document known as Exhibit PD6.
Digging deeper into the identity of the physical courier who evacuated the multi-million dollar cash from the banking halls, Eloho named a certain Jibril Abubakar as the individual who collected the funds.
Investigators discovered that the identity card provided by Abubakar, which was admitted in evidence as Exhibit PD4, carried a fraudulent employee identification number, confirming that the courier was never a genuine staff member working under the Secretary to the Government of the Federation.
When the defense counsel pressed the senior police officer on whether the heavy withdrawal followed established standard operating procedures, the witness noted that “this document is from the governor to the Director Banking Services, protocol was not followed.”
He further clarified that normal administrative guidelines dictated that such high-volume monetary approvals should have progressed sequentially through the office of the deputy governor instead of bypassing established institutional hierarchies.
Justice Muazu subsequently adjourned the case until July 3, 2026, for the continuation of the trial.
