An Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) investigator on Thursday detailed before a Lagos State Special Offences Court how former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele, allegedly amassed properties across the country through front men.
The witness, Alvan Gurumnaan, the seventh to testify for the prosecution, told Justice Rahman Oshodi that the properties in Lagos, Ogun, Delta and Abuja far exceeded Emefiele’s lawful earnings as CBN governor.
Gurumnaan said the commission found over $2m in cash in the office of a lawyer, Ifeanyi Omeke, who allegedly confessed to acting as a proxy and collecting money for the former CBN chief.
The investigator also alleged that companies seeking foreign exchange were frustrated until they made special arrangements.
He said a firm paid millions of dollars to Emefiele through his aide, Monday Osazuwa, and co-defendant Henry Omoile.
“Osazuwa admitted to us in the course of the investigation that he received about $17 million from the company and gave it to the second defendant sometime. The second defendant was the one who later took the money to the first defendant,” the witness told the court.
He further claimed that the managing director of Source Computer was made to pay Emefiele before the firm’s contract payments were released.
Among the assets the witness linked to the former CBN governor were twin duplexes in Lekki Phase 1, two mansions in Queen’s Drive, Ikoyi, eight flats on Adekunle Lawal Street, Ikoyi, and a factory in Agbor, Delta State.
Others are an Ogun State warehouse said to hold containers worth hundreds of billions of naira, a 94-flat high-rise in Ikoyi, an industrial park in Amuwo Odofin and a 750-unit housing estate in Lokogoma, Abuja.
He said courts had ordered the forfeiture of several of the assets.
Counsel to Emefiele, Ojo Olalekan (SAN), and Omoile’s lawyer, Kazeem Gbadamosi, objected to the testimony, arguing that it introduced facts not disclosed in the proof of evidence.
The prosecution, led by the Director of Public Prosecutions of the Federation, Rotimi Oyedepo (SAN), insisted that the evidence was relevant and that the defence could test it under cross-examination.
Relying on the Supreme Court decision in Ugwuma v. The State (2018), Justice Oshodi ruled that an investigating officer could give evidence of his findings, and allowed the testimony to continue.
The judge, however, deferred a decision on a Supreme Court judgment the witness sought to tender, following another objection by the defence.
Emefiele is facing 19 counts, while Omoile faces three, over alleged gratification and abuse of office involving $4.5bn and N2.8bn.
The trial continues on November 13, 2026.
