A group, The Project Nigeria Coalition wants suspended Central Bank of
Nigeria, CBN Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, to be probed over N200
Billion Enterprise Fund and the appointment of Chapel Hill, owned by Wale
Edun, an ally of Bola Tinubu, as Financial Adviser to CBN.
In a statement signed by Olufemi Lawson, General Secretary of the PNC,
alleged that the appointment of Mustapha Chike-Obi as Asset Management
Company of Nigeria, AMCON, is questionable as both Edun and Chike-Obi are
bosom friends.
The group alleged that while Chapel Hill was CBN Financial Adviser, it was
curiously also appointed Financial Adviser to AMCON and Billions of fees
said to have been paid without due process to the Edun’s company.
The PNC Statement reads:
“The Project Nigeria Coalition wants the Federal Government to extend the
on-going probe of the suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria
(CBN) to the Assets Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON)
“In taking over the Banks and handling the restructuring of the so-called
problematic banks, CBN appointed Chapel Hill and Deutsche to be the
Financial Advisers. The Chairman of Chapel Hill is Wale Edun who is a
close friend and mentor to Sanusi and strong ally of APC National
Leader,Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
“We need to know if due process was followed in the process of appointing
these parties in conformity with the Public Procurement Act (PPA).
“Subsequently, following the decision to set up AMCON, Mustapha Chike-Obi
was appointed by Sanusi to be the MD. Mustapha is a very close to Wale
Edun and infact lived in his house when he returned to Nigeria to take up
the job and did so for a few months even after the appointment.
“Surprisingly the same Chapel Hill chaired by Wale Edun was then also
appointed the Financial Adviser to AMCON, an obvious conflict of interest
as they now became Financial Advisers to both CBN and AMCON (where is the
independence?). This was also done without due process, advertisement or
competitive bidding as stated in the PPA. In both cases, fees in billions
of Naira were paid. This needs to be investigated.
“Prior to the setting up of AMCON, Sanusi had alluded to being able to
clear up the seized banks’ debts with about N600 billion. Following the
setting up of AMCON, the company issued Bonds totalling N4 Trillion under
the supervision of the CBN without Appropriation and created a total loan
book in excess of N5.7 Trillion ($36billion) for Nigerians and generations
unborn.
“It is either that total liability had not been fully assessed before
going down the AMCON route or the figures became bloated. Either
incompetence or deliberate, falsehood/fraud.
“In the same vein, we want an audit of the disbursement of the N220b small
and medium enterprises fund of CBN under Sanusi as we have information
that it became one huge bazaar.
“Sanusi hired Africonsult as consultants to the fund .The firm with no
strong capital base and accused of all manners of frauds in the handling
of Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) in Abacha days is said to have had a field
day in the handling of this fund.
“Investigations should unravel what happened and how this firm was
selected by Sanusi.
Lastly, recruitments into CBN under the tenure of Sanusi needs to be
scrutinised. Reports are that several persons were hired at top positions
as consultants and then subsequently and fraudulently converted to full
staff in breach of the rules while others were simply hired without the
usual due process into high and sensitive positions on the order of the
suspended Governor. These were done while competent and long standing
professionalstaffs were pushed aside.
Thank you.”
Yours sincerely,
Comrade Olufemi Lawson
General secretary,
PNC