{"id":126774,"date":"2026-04-28T20:31:41","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T19:31:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/?p=126774"},"modified":"2026-04-28T20:31:41","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T19:31:41","slug":"efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/","title":{"rendered":"EFCC Drags Emefiele To Court Over $6.23m Election\u00a0 Observers&#8217; payment"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">By Oscar Okhifo,<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u00a0The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Tuesday told the Federal High Court in Abuja that former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele, authorised a $6.23 million payment to foreign election observers, describing the transaction as fraudulent and carried out without due process.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">The allegation was made during the ongoing trial in which the anti-graft agency is prosecuting Emefiele over alleged financial misconduct while he headed the apex bank.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">The prosecution told the court that it relied on documentary evidence, including a letter allegedly issued from the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), as well as payment records said to have been generated from the Central Bank of Nigeria under Emefiele\u2019s watch.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">It insisted that the documents showed approval and release of funds for foreign election observers, but maintained that the process was irregular and in breach of financial regulations.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">A prosecution witness, while giving evidence, identified the documents and applied to tender them as exhibits before the court.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">But defence counsel kicked against their admissibility, arguing that the witness was not the proper custodian of the records and could not give evidence on how they were generated or authorised.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">The defence further insisted that only officials directly responsible for the issuance or custody of the documents could properly lay the foundation for their admission.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">The presiding judge, after listening to both sides, adjourned ruling on the objection, stating that a decision would be delivered at a later date.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">The matter forms part of ongoing proceedings against Godwin Emefiele, who is facing multiple allegations of financial impropriety since leaving office as CBN governor.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">The case was adjourned for continuation of hearing.<\/div>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Related Posts generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Oscar Okhifo, \u00a0The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Tuesday told the Federal High Court in Abuja that former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele, authorised&hellip;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Related Posts generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":126775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>EFCC Drags Emefiele To Court Over $6.23m Election\u00a0 Observers&#039; payment - Pointblank News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"EFCC Drags Emefiele To Court Over $6.23m Election\u00a0 Observers&#039; payment - Pointblank News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Oscar Okhifo, \u00a0The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Tuesday told the Federal High Court in Abuja that former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele, authorised&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Pointblank News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-04-28T19:31:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/3aa74000-f5b1-11ee-bad6-cb3a04cd723f.png.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"360\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Our Reporter\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Our Reporter\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Our Reporter\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/#\/schema\/person\/ba61acbe7e8967bcf3f3ba603d9db23c\"},\"headline\":\"EFCC Drags Emefiele To Court Over $6.23m Election\u00a0 Observers&#8217; payment\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-04-28T19:31:41+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/\"},\"wordCount\":292,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/3aa74000-f5b1-11ee-bad6-cb3a04cd723f.png.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Exclusive\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/\",\"name\":\"EFCC Drags Emefiele To Court Over $6.23m Election\u00a0 Observers' payment - Pointblank News\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/3aa74000-f5b1-11ee-bad6-cb3a04cd723f.png.webp\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-04-28T19:31:41+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/#\/schema\/person\/ba61acbe7e8967bcf3f3ba603d9db23c\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/3aa74000-f5b1-11ee-bad6-cb3a04cd723f.png.webp\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/3aa74000-f5b1-11ee-bad6-cb3a04cd723f.png.webp\",\"width\":640,\"height\":360},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"EFCC Drags Emefiele To Court Over $6.23m Election\u00a0 Observers&#8217; payment\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/\",\"name\":\"Pointblank News\",\"description\":\"Just the news\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/#\/schema\/person\/ba61acbe7e8967bcf3f3ba603d9db23c\",\"name\":\"Our Reporter\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/83b3820ef93d502ae3a617b2c881ca42?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/83b3820ef93d502ae3a617b2c881ca42?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Our Reporter\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/author\/admin\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"EFCC Drags Emefiele To Court Over $6.23m Election\u00a0 Observers' payment - Pointblank News","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"EFCC Drags Emefiele To Court Over $6.23m Election\u00a0 Observers' payment - Pointblank News","og_description":"By Oscar Okhifo, \u00a0The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Tuesday told the Federal High Court in Abuja that former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele, authorised&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/","og_site_name":"Pointblank News","article_published_time":"2026-04-28T19:31:41+00:00","og_image":[{"width":640,"height":360,"url":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/3aa74000-f5b1-11ee-bad6-cb3a04cd723f.png.webp","type":"image\/webp"}],"author":"Our Reporter","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Our Reporter","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/"},"author":{"name":"Our Reporter","@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/#\/schema\/person\/ba61acbe7e8967bcf3f3ba603d9db23c"},"headline":"EFCC Drags Emefiele To Court Over $6.23m Election\u00a0 Observers&#8217; payment","datePublished":"2026-04-28T19:31:41+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/"},"wordCount":292,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/3aa74000-f5b1-11ee-bad6-cb3a04cd723f.png.webp","articleSection":["Exclusive"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/","url":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/","name":"EFCC Drags Emefiele To Court Over $6.23m Election\u00a0 Observers' payment - Pointblank News","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/3aa74000-f5b1-11ee-bad6-cb3a04cd723f.png.webp","datePublished":"2026-04-28T19:31:41+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/#\/schema\/person\/ba61acbe7e8967bcf3f3ba603d9db23c"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/3aa74000-f5b1-11ee-bad6-cb3a04cd723f.png.webp","contentUrl":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/3aa74000-f5b1-11ee-bad6-cb3a04cd723f.png.webp","width":640,"height":360},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/efcc-drags-emefiele-to-court-over-6-23m-election-observers-payment\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"EFCC Drags Emefiele To Court Over $6.23m Election\u00a0 Observers&#8217; payment"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/#website","url":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/","name":"Pointblank News","description":"Just the news","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/#\/schema\/person\/ba61acbe7e8967bcf3f3ba603d9db23c","name":"Our Reporter","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/83b3820ef93d502ae3a617b2c881ca42?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/83b3820ef93d502ae3a617b2c881ca42?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Our Reporter"},"url":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126774"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126776,"href":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126774\/revisions\/126776"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}