By Charles Ike-Okoh
FRI, MARCH 10 2017-Adams Oshiomhole, former governor of Edo State, Nigeria today described how Charles Soludo, also the former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, questionably made foreign exchange allocations to two second generation banks from which they made a killing of about N8 billion on the eve of a major foreign exchange policy shift that would see the naira devalued.
Oshiomhole said he had a conversation where he questioned Soludo’s devaluation tactics when he auctioned dollar at a very low rate a day before he devalued the naira.
“I asked him, if you know you are going to devalue the naira on Friday why did you auction dollar on Friday?
Soludo promptly denied the allegation. “I want to say categorically and put it on record that Adams Oshiomhole has lied,” he retorted, seemingly trying to contain his own anger on the moral questions the allegation just raised.
Oshiomhole is the first government or political big wig to bring to the public knowledge the accusation which dogged Soludo towards the end of his tenure in 2009. Among the numerous speculations on the allegation which was never clarified until today, was that Soludo tipped-off his cronies on the eve of the announcement which they capitalised on to make the huge forex kill.
Oshiomhole dropped the bombshell during the Vanguard Newspaper Economic Discourse conference, theme: ‘The Hard Facts to Rescue the Nigerian Economy’ at the Civic Centre, Lagos, Nigeria.
He said I got some intelligence from my colleagues in the system and we found out that the CBN under Soludo had just allocated a couple of millions of dollars to, as they were then known, two new generation banks. And I asked Soludo, this devaluation is it as a measure of demand and supply? Or that the Naira simply collapsed over night or was it programmed. He said no, there is no need to panic, it was programmed. He said Soludo told him that they fixed the date of the devaluation and the people knew that they were going to devalue on that particular day.
“But I asked him, if you knew you were going to devalue by Friday why did you auction dollar at a lower rate on Thursday,” Oshiomhole said.
He said he accused him right there that he has enriched these two young men to the tune of N8 billion a reflection of internal abuse.
He said Aliko Dangote and Raji Fashola, then governor of Lagos State and now the minister of works, among others were present when he threw the questions at Soludo.
“With the adjustment of the exchange rate we did not have devaluation or depreciation,” Prof Soludo responded.
He was speaking shortly after he was given two minutes to respond to the allegation that had the audience petrified for the moral questions it raised, particularly after Soludo had spent close to 27 minutes questioning the competence of the latest economic programme (2017-2020 economic recovery and growth plan) put in place by the ruling All Progressive Congress, APC, as the guest speaker of the event.
“There were a weekly bidding for foreign exchange (twice or 3 times every week) by banks and only the successful banks at each bid were allocated foreign exchange-even if it is one or two or three banks. Charles Soludo wasn’t even part of it. There was a committee, there was offer and counter offer and in the market there, they determined the cut off for the successful bid. When we had the bid and two banks succeeded, the governor did not know. We did not make any direct allocation to anybody. Every week produced a different exchange rate and there were different winners for every bid,” Soludo said leaving his followers satisfied but a lot more people in the audience dissatisfied.
“We need to see more of this type of expose made in public. That is how we can really appreciate the magnitude of the rot these so called bureaucrats and politicians leave behind,” one company CEO present told the G&BJournal.
