An official of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Alvan Gurumnaan, who is the eighth prosecution witness, has told the Lagos State Special Offences Court in Ikeja how former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Godwin Emefiele, allegedly received $17.1 million in cash over three years through a middleman.
The witness, under questioning by EFCC’s lead lawyer, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) Rotimi Oyedepo, explained to Justice Rahman Oshodi that the money was handed to Emefiele’s associate, Henry Omoile, between 2020 and 2023. Both men face a 19-count charge brought by the EFCC, including allegations of corrupt demands and gratification involving $4.5 billion and ₦2.8 billion.
Gurumnaan, who led the EFCC’s special operations team on the case, said the commission began investigating after receiving intelligence reports while Emefiele was still in office. He narrated how they invited Omoile for questioning and conducted a thorough probe that involved requesting documents and questioning officers from various departments of the CBN, the Code of Conduct Bureau, Corporate Affairs Commission, and several banks.
The witness stated, “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.
During the hearing, the EFCC presented documents connected to the cash transfers as evidence. Emefiele’s lawyers said he was willing to allow forensic experts to examine these documents. However, the court directed the defence to file a formal application before any inspection could take place.
The court adjourned the case until October 7, 8, and 9, 2025, after the court’s vacation, for the continuation of the witness testimony.
