Bawa reiterated that the EFCC is pleased with the move by the Central Bank of Nigeria to redesign some naira notes.
The number of governors on the watchlist of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has increased, according to Abdulrasheed Bawa, EFCC Chairman.
He disclosed this information to reporters at the Aso Villa in Abuja after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari.
He, however, did not mention the number of governors being monitored by the anti-graft agency.
Bawa reiterated that the EFCC is pleased with the move by the Central Bank of Nigeria to redesign some naira notes.
According to him, it will give the CBN more fiscal and improve borrowing.
The CBN had announced its plan to redesign N200, N500 and N1000, saying there were fewer funds in banks than they were in circulation.
The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, said the newly designed notes will be in circulation by mid-December 2022.
Earlier, the EFCC revealed that three serving governors who had stashed some cash in houses were being monitored.
Bawa said the governors were making moves to launder hoarded cash through table payment of salaries to workers.
Bawa said two of them are from the North, while the third one is from the southern part of the country.
He noted that intelligence at the agency’s disposal revealed that the three governors had concluded plans to inject the money into the system through table payment of salaries to workers.
Multiple sources identified the governors as Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, Bello Matawalle of Zamfara State and Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State, in exclusive interviews with SaharaReporters.
While the EFCC boss refused to disclose the identities of the three governors, multiple sources in the anti-graft agency identified them as Governors Wike, Ganduje and Matawalle of Rivers, Kano and Zamfara respectively to SaharaReporters.
“The three governors we are monitoring are Governors Wike, Matawalle and Kano’s Ganduje. Billions of naira stashed in their homes in Abuja, Port Harcourt and Kano have been discovered,” a top EFCC official had told SaharaReporters.
“These three state governors were caught trying to move these huge sums of notes kept in their residences after the CBN announced its decision to redesign the naira notes.
“They are in billions; that of Ganduje is purely kept in Kano but he has used some parts to pay for a hotel he’s building in Abuja. The hotel is at the back of the Nigerian Air Force Conference Centre.”
“Zamfara governor, Matawalle kept his own in some houses he owns in Abuja while Wike has his own kept in Abuja and Port Harcourt,” one of the sources said.
However, Matawalle has denied the allegation, saying he was ready to grant EFCC operatives access to his houses to confirm if any cash was stashed there.