SEVERAL Nigerian economists and finance experts will not forget the events of September 17, 2021. It was the 280th Monetary Policy Meeting (MPC) meeting of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in Abuja. At the end of the 2-day meeting, the then CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele made some comments against an online web platform reporting movements in the foreign exchange (FX), abokiFX.

According to Mr Emefiele, “I hear that he is making news on social media. I am not on social media. Let him come and meet me in the central bank. Let him show his face. Those who feel they want to support him and fight me, come out let us fight,’ Mr Emefiele said, referring to abokiFX founder, Mr Oniwinde Adedotun.

Mr Emefiele confirmed that Mr Adedotun was under investigation for “illegal activity that undermines the economy.”

“The only exchange rate remains the I&E window, which is the market we expect everybody who wishes to procure or sell forex to get it. I am sorry to say that I do not, and I do not intend to recognise any fx in the market,” Mr Emefiele noted.

Mr Emefiele said the CBN had been studying the activities of abokiFX in the previous two years, revealing that there was a time the bank’s managers asked colleagues to call the AbokiFX’s founder, asking how he conducted the FX rates.

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“He is a Nigerian, living in England. We will track him, Mr Oniwinde, we will track you.We cannot allow you to continue to kill our economy,” the ex-CBN governor boasted.

CBN claims vs reality

The claim by the CBN Governor at that sounded sensible, with some blaming the online platform for being a major problem. However, the claim did not hold water.

On the day the ex-CBN Governor attacked abokiFX, the naira stood at N412. 88/$1 at the official Investors and Exporters (I&E) window. This was incidentally the day AbokiFX shut down its operations.

“abokiFX has taken the decision today, the 17 of September 2021, to temporarily suspend rate updates on all our platforms, until we get better clarity of the situation. Final rates have been posted this evening but the abokiFX news section and the Crypto rates section will still be active,” the platform posted.

As of the time Mr Emefiele was suspended as CBN helmsman on June 9, 2023, the naira stood at N464.67/$, showing that the local currency had weakened by N51.79/$ despite the shutdown of abokiFX.

In fact, as at the time Mr Emefiele was concluding his tenure, the naira was trading at over 500/$ at the parallel market, and the nation had four or five different markets for the FX – I & E window, parallel market, pilgrimage market, Federal Government market, among others.

It might look like the naira was stronger at that time than now, but there were acute FX shortages at that time. About 767 manufacturing companies shut down operations while 335 experienced distress in 2023, due to inflation and foreign shortages.

The ex-Director-General (DG) of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce Industry (LCCI), Mr Muda Yusuf, said the CBN should ‘reform’ the FX market. “When you fix the rate at, say, N410/$1 and expect people to bring in their foreign currency at such a rate, will they bring it, knowing that the open market is around N500/$1? So, in a way, we are blocking the supply of forex to the official system,” he warned.

Managing Director of Financial Derivatives, Mr Bismarck Rewane, echoed the same sentiment, urging the Emefiele-led CBN to allow the naira to float. But he did not do so but continued to ration dollars.

The Olayemi Cardoso-led CBN, who came on in 2023, has liberalised the FX market and introduced reforms, leading to the naira steep fall. But dollar is now available and new investments are flowing into the Nigerian economy. He is also attracting global praise for doing things his predecessor could not do.

Allegations against Emefiele

Mr Emefiele is facing trials over his conduct and activities as the CBN Governor. He headed the CBN between 2015 and 2023. Special Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) investigator, Mr Jim Obazee, had alleged, after an investigation, that Mr Emefiele used proxies to acquire three banks in Nigeria.

The reports, which focused on the acquisition of Union Bank, Keystone Bank and Polaris Bank, were submitted to President Bola Tinubu in two separate letters dated December 20, 2023.

“Keystone was acquired for free as did Polaris Bank and the special investigator should liaise with the CBN to recover these two banks to the Federal Government of Nigeria,” said one of the reports.

Another report on the acquisition of Keystone Bank alleged that the Asset Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) managing director moved N20 billion to Heritage Bank as placement in 2010. Consequently, Heritage Bank provided “a loan of N25 billion to the promoters of Isa Funtua/Emefiele group’s acquisition vehicles to buy Keystone Bank.”

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An audit by the CBN in 2023 further uncovered irregularities and fraud in the Godwin Emefiele-led foreign exchange (FX) forward contracts.

An FX forward contract is an agreement between two parties to exchange an amount of one currency for another at a predetermined exchange rate on a future date.

In a circular released by the CBN in April 2025 entitled, ‘Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) on the Settlement of Undelivered Forward Contracts,’ the bank said that fraud, misrepresentation, lack of proper documentation, and illegality or breach of law were found in the FX contracts embarked upon by the previous administration of the bank led by Emefiele.

In September 2023, the CBN had engaged Deloitte to conduct a comprehensive forensic audit of all transactions in the Retail Secondary Market Intervention Sales (RSMIS), including undelivered forward contracts, carried out under Mr Emefiele.

The audit found a company name on approved sales result that was different from the company name on Form M portal. It also discovered that the cumulative value of the approved FX forward sales on the forex form number from Auction 1 in 2021 to the date of the auction exceeded the total value of the forex form number.