- Wants their Unexplained Wealth Investigated
- Says Emefiele was like a mad man…
By Ken Afor
Chief Olabode George, a former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and one time military governor of Ondo State has called on the various anti-corruption agencies in Nigeria to thoroughly investigate some of the country’s top bank executives over what he termed their alleged unexplained wealth.
George, who made the call in a video posted on Instagram by TVC, a Lagos-based television station, queried the nature of their business that would warrant the level of wealth they have suddenly acquired.
While commenting on the late former Chief Executive Officer of Access Holdings Plc, Herbert Wigwe, who died in a helicopter crash last Friday in California, United States, and was on the verge of starting his own university in Nigeria, George faulted how the deceased had access to funds that enabled him to have thec”temerity establish a university of that magnitude abd advertise it on CNN.”
He said: “How can an MD of a Bank do that? Who the heck is Tony Elumelu…? What did he do? Where is the factory? He was a bank man, a bank man somehow got license…
“At the same time, where are at they…? All of them, stupendously wealthy now. Wigwe, who became MD of Access Bank, eh? Immediately, when the other young man left, has now established a university. He has the temerity to be advertising that university on CNN – Wigwe University. That was personally established by him. Where is the money from? Where is his factory? Access Bank? What is the practice? They release dollars to them on a monthly basis.”
The PDP chieftain alleged that most of the bank MDs must have acquired what he called unexplained ” wealth through the foreign exchange market, where they have unrestricted access to US Dollars and sell at exorbitant rates, denying those who needed it the most”.
The former Chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) added that the unethical practice by some of these bank executives has been going on for years without the authorities taking any appropriate action to either curb, halt or investigate it
He exposed them further: “They use the dollars. If it’s at one to hundred, they will get it through to the malams to say one to two hundred. You see that profit. What do they do with it? Who are the commercial people that really need it and get it? Most people get back to the malams.
“You hardly will get from the bank unless you are… Is that commercial activity? So what they had done to this nation, they must all be invited for discussion because the rottenness started from that and it has been going on for years, but it has exploded now on our faces and what Emefiele did…Have you ever seen any central bank of any country giving personal loan to individuals? Are we mad? What was going on in his head? Commercial bank?”
Regarding the level of allegations of corruption against the embattled former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, George accused him of abandoning his primary responsibility of addressing fiscal and monetary policies to delve into politics, which to him, was most stupid, and unthinkable for any individual of his caliber”
He added:”You turned the Central Bank to a commercial bank. Central Bank that should be responsible for your fiscal and monetary policies. They forgot completely. And then he had the temerity to say, I wanted to contest as president because he has stolen so much money,” he said.
