A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Femi Falana, has disregarded the idea of apologising to Charles Soludo for alleging that the former Central Bank of Nigerian (CBN) governor mismanaged the country’s foreign reserves during his tenure.
He described Soludo’s demand for apology as a joke, insisting on his claim that CBN, under Professor Soludo, illegally transferring $7 billion to 14 commercial banks in 2006.
Falana had alleged that the CBN under Soludo illegally transferred $7 billion to 14 commercial banks in 2006.
And Soludo, who described the allegation as laughable and ignorance of how the bank is run, demanded an apology.
In his reply, Falana in a statement said he would not apologise.
He said, “For the avoidance of doubt, I wish to reiterate that it was the management of the CBN which claimed to have given out its own ‘share’ of 7 billion dollars from the foreign reserves estimated at 38 billion dollars at the material time.
“Is Professor Soludo insisting that CBN under his management was entitled to any ‘share’ of the nation’s foreign reserves?
“In any case, whether it was a deposit or its own share of the foreign reserves, did the CBN ever announce that the deposit had been paid back to the foreign reserves which belong to the three tiers of government? “If there is nothing to hide, why did the CBN ignore the request of the Civil Society Network Against Corruption for information on the ‘deposit’ of 7 billion dollars?
“As far as Soludo is concerned, these allegations are laughable and betray a lack of knowledge of how a bank such as CBN works. Has AMCON not been set up to recover those loans and deposits running to several trillions of Naira? For goodness sake, how does a CBN work outside the ambit of the Constitution and the Central Bank Act, 2007?
“Frankly speaking, I am of the view that Professor Soludo’s demand for an apology is a joke since it was the CBN management under him that claimed to have given its own ‘share’ of $7 billion to the 14 banks.”
