The trial of Willie Obiano, former governor of Anambra State, continued on Monday, before Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC presenting its 9th witness.
Obiano is facing prosecution by the EFCC on nine-count charges of embezzlement and money laundering to the tune of N4 billion.
At Monday`s proceedings, the EFCC called Prosecution Witness 9, PW9, Andrew Ali, a staff of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, and Head of the License office who revealed that three companies out of the 23 company accounts connected with the alleged N4 billion fraud were not duly licensed with the CBN to carry out bureau de change business.
Ali, while being led in evidence by prosecution counsel, Slyvanus Tahir, SAN, disclosed that Connaught International service, SY Panda Enterprise and Zirga Zirga Trading company were not licensed to carry out BDC business, adding that Zirga has been delisted from the CBN license list before 2014.
“Sometimes around April 2023, we receive two letters from the EFCC regarding some 23 financial institutions to know if they were licensed or not, I recall forwarding the two letters to the desk officer, who upon review, said we have received such letters in the past before so we comprehensively replied the EFCC in a letter dated May 21, 2023 and as seen in the letter of our response, out of 23 companies, three of them were not registered” he said.
The eight-page letter from the EFCC and the response were admitted in evidence and marked as exhibit A1-A8.
While being cross-examined by defence counsel, Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN, Ali recalled that Zirga Zirga trading company did not meet the licensing requirements before 2014. “Once you do not meet the requirements, you are delisted. It is in public knowledge that we only supervise the people that are licensed, once you are not on our list, we lose the power to supervise you. We run public notice to sensitise the public not to operate with unlicensed companies which is also on our website.
He stated further that,is stated clearly in section 15 and 19 of the CBN Revised Operational Guidelines 2015. Our work is to regulate, and supervise them. Once you do not meet the requirement of renewable licensing, you will be delisted and we publish it on our valedictory list which is on our website. BDCs also have operational accounts which they do business with, they are not allowed to do business without those accounts.” he revealed. Justice Ekwo adjourned the matter to February 26, 2025 for continuation of trial.
