EFFC arrests Soludo, ex- CBN governor

Charles Soludo

Charles Soludo: quizzed over Aussie deal


Oluokun Ayorinde/Abuja

Nigeria’s anti graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC on Thursday afternoon arrested Professor Charles Soludo former Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria. EFCC sources told P.M.NEWS that Soludo was picked up in Abuja but was not forthcoming on the circumstances surrounding his arrest.

Charles Soludo: quizzed over Aussie deal

The source also told P.M. NEWS that Soludo is currently being interrogated by the operatives of the anti-graft agency. According to him, the former CBN chief may spend the night in the custody of the anti graft agency.

The source refused to disclose the reason for the arrest of the former banker.

But PM NEWS gathered that his arrest is most likely to be related to a petition by HEDA Resource Centre asking the EFCC to investigate and prosecute all government officials indicted in the scandal over the printing of polymer Naira notes during the tenure of Professor Charles Soludo at the Central Bank of Nigeria between 2006 and 2008.

The polymer notes were printed by Securency, a currency printing firm owned by the The Reserve Bank of Australia. In the petition sent to EFCC and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission, HEDA had drawn the attention of the anti-graft agencies to reports by The Age, an Australian newspaper which indicated that former workers at Securency had told the police the firm produced millions of partly made Nigerian banknotes without authorisation from the Nigerian authorities.

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HEDA’s petition also drew attention to the fact that The Age reported that Securency paid some N750 million in bribes to some officials of the CBN between 2006 and 2008 in order to secure the contract to make polymer notes for Nigeria, channeling the bribes through Benoy Berry and Michael Harvey, two British businessmen.

Heda recalled that The Age newspaper had also reported that the Australian Federal Police investigated Securency over alleged bribery of foreign officials, including Nigerian and Vietnamese officials, to win contracts in these countries.

The organization also recalled that the Australian Federal Police had sent a high level confidential security memo to the Presidency through the Office of the National Security Adviser detailing the bribery probe and series of multimillion-dollar payments by Securency into offshore bank accounts of the two British-based businessmen for onward transfer to Nigerian Government Officials to secure the bank-note deal.

Based on the petition sent on 23 May 2012, EFCC had in a letter dated 22, August, 2012 invited Olanrewaju Suraju, the chairman of HEDA for a chat.

Suraj said in a statement that the the letter of invitation was signed by the Commission’s Head of Advance Fee Fraud, dated August 22, 2012.

Soludo dabbled into politics after his tenure and was a gubernatorial candidate in Anambra State.

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