AN official of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Alvan Gurumnaan, who is testifying as the eighth prosecution witness, has told the Lagos State Special Offences Court sitting in Ikeja how a former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, allegedly received a total of $17.1 million in cash through a proxy, for three years.
Led in evidence by counsel for the EFCC, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Rotimi Oyedepo, the witness, Gurumnaan, told Justice Rahman Oshodi, that the monies were received between 2020 and 2023, in tranches and were handed over to Emefiele’s associate, and co-defendant in the case, Henry Omoile.
Emefiele and Omoile are facing a 19-count charge filed against them by the EFCC.
The charge borders on corrupt demands and gratification totalling $4.5 billion and ₦2.8 billion.
While testifying on Tuesday, Gurumnaan, who said he was the head of the special operations team of the EFCC that investigated the defendants, narrated how intelligence reports against Emefiele even while he was in office led the commission to carry out extensive investigations.
He said, “In the course of the investigation, we met the second defendant, Omoile, and we invited him to our office. We found the intelligence credible and we swung into action by writing several letters of investigation activities to CBN where we requested documents and for officers of the banks, from trade and exchange department, currency operations and banking supervision, legal, HR and many other departments to report to our office to give explanation.
“We also wrote the Code of Conduct Bureau, the Corporate Affairs Commission, several commercial banks, and the FMDQ.
“After collating the information, we invited officers from those departments and put questions to them and their responses were recorded. Some of them were detained and released to reliable sureties.”
He added, “We had reasons to invite some staff that worked directly with the first defendant both in the CBN HQ in Abuja and the annex in Lagos. Some of them include Monday Osazuwa, John Adetola, and John Ogar.
“One name that featured prominently in our investigation was one Eric Odoh who was PA to the first defendant, Emefiele. We made frantic efforts to bring him in for questions but he was nowhere to be found. We later received intelligence that he had absconded and gone out of the country. Reports traced him to Canada, Dominican Republic and many other places.”
Gurumnaan further explained that a red notice alert was sent out to Interpol.
“Which means he’s now being looked for by international police and we placed him on a watch list and declared him wanted. He has since not been found.
“However, when one of the staff members, Monday Osazuwa, was invited, we interviewed him, and he confirmed that he knew the first defendant from when they worked together in Zenith Bank.
“The first defendant was MD, Zenith, and when he was appointed to CBN, he facilitated the employment of Osazuwa to join him as a senior supervisor in the Lagos office of the CBN,” he said.
He added that Osazuwa confirmed that he ran errands for the first defendant both at Zenith and CBN and some of those errands were official and some others were personal.
He said the personal errands Osazuwa ran included when he received a call from the first defendant and told him to call a certain gentleman called Mr Mohits who was in London at the time and who gave him the number of a businessman with an office address in VI, Lagos.
“From September 2020 to June 2, 2023, just a week before the first defendant was suspended from office, this businessman gave him a total of $17.1 million dollars to give to Emefiele. The monies were sent through Osazuwa and upon receiving those sums, Osazuwa went to the first defendant’s (Emefiele’s) house in Lagos where he handed over the monies to the second defendant, Omoile”.
“The second defendant then transmitted the monies to the first defendant. In other instances, he transmitted the monies to the first defendant personally. Most of these transactions took place on Fridays when the first defendant was working out of his offices in Lagos,” he added.
The EFCC subsequently tendered in evidence all documents gathered in relation to the transactions.
Meanwhile, the former CBN governor, through his lawyers has indicated his readiness to subject to forensic inspection all the documents and exhibits tendered.
His lead counsel and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Olalekan Ojo, said, “The first defendant hereby applies to examine either by himself or by any forensic expert of his choice, the documents tendered as exhibit E. He seeks to inspect the documents in the presence of the officials of court.”
The prosecution, however, objected to the oral application, urging the court to direct the defence to file a formal application.
Counsel for the second defendant, Yinka Kotoye (SAN), also reminded the court that the defence had previously requested access to all these documents and information but the prosecution had not provided it.
In his ruling on the matter, Justice Rahman Oshodi ordered the defence to file a formal application seeking leave to call a forensic expert to examine the documents.
Justice Oshodi then adjourned to October 7, 8, and 9, 2025, after the court’s annual vacation, for the continuation of the witness’s testimony.