Falana lied I gave $7bn of Nigeria’s reserves to banks – Soludo

Former Central Bank of Nigeria governor, Charles Soludo has denied claims by lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN) that he unlawfully gave $7 billion of Nigeria’s reserves to banks as loans and never recovered them.

Falan had also alleged that another former governor of the CBN, Sanusi Lamido also gave another unrecovered N600 billion as bailout to the same banks.

But in a statement by Soludo on Saturday, he said the allegations were ‘blatant lies’, demanding evidence or an apology.

“From the above quotation, Falana alleged that I “removed” $7 billion from Nigeria’s external reserves and gave same as a “loan” to 14 Nigerian banks in 2006, and apparently such a “loan” has not been recovered. This is a blatant lie and I challenge Falana to publish the details of such a “loan” which remains unpaid or as a person with honour, publish a retraction and unreserved apology immediately,” Soludo said.

Soludo also said Nigeria didn’t lose a penny of the reserves during his tenure and also had the highest rate of reserve accumulation in history.

“On assumption of office, I met exactly $10 billion in foreign reserves. With average monthly oil price of $59 during my tenure, we accumulated reserves to all time high of over $62 billion. Even after paying off Nigeria’s external debt with $12 billion and facing unprecedented global financial and economic crisis, I still left $45 billion upon leaving office in 2009,” he said.

“Throughout my tenure, Nigeria never lost one penny of the reserves. It is particularly important to note that even during the global financial crisis of 2008/2009 when major international banks collapsed and some countries lost some of their reserves, our prudent management ensured that Nigeria never lost a penny but earned returns on the reserves. Given the powerful interests that I fought during the consolidation of banks and even since I left office, one can only imagine the international headlines that would have been made if just one penny of the reserves was unaccounted for,” he said.

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