The criminal case brought against Godwin Emefiele, the former head of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has been downsized by the federal government.The government charged Emefiele with 20 counts of what seemed to be procurement fraud in August.
Along with Sa'adatu Yaro, a female employee of CBN, and her business, April 1616 Investment, the former governor of the highest bank was charged.
His arraignment has been postponed three times, and the Nigeria Labour Congress's (NLC) statewide strike caused it to do so once more on Wednesday.
The modified charge, which is now designated CR/577/2023, still verges on procurement fraud, but Emefile is now the only defendant on six charges instead of the original six.
Additionally, the value of the alleged procurement fraud was downgraded from N6.9 billion to N1.2 billion.
Emefiele was charged with abusing his position to provide Yaro a corrupt benefit by giving him a contract for N1.2 billion to buy 43 cars between 2018 and 2020.
These consist of one Toyota Avalon, priced at N99.9 million, and 37 Toyota Hilux vehicles, valued at N854.7 million.
The other two are a N73.8 million Toyota Landcruiser V8 and two N44,200,000 Toyota Hilux Shell Specification Vehicles.
It was said that he gave Yaro a 138 million dollar deal to buy two Toyota Landcruiser VXR V8 vehicles.