The Special Investigator for the Central Bank of Nigeria, Jim Obazee, has requested an official of the apex bank and two others on the run be placed under Interpol red notice for allegedly forging the signature of former President Muhammadu Buhari io fraudulently withdraw $6.2 million from the nation’s treasury.  

Peoples Gazette gathered that the request became imperative after the suspects failed to turn themselves in for questioning over the looted funds, leading investigators to believe that they had fled the country to escape prosecution.

Four months before Mr Buhari’s administration ended in 2023, the sum of $6.2 million was withdrawn from the government coffers through a letter purportedly from the presidency (bearing Mr Buhari’s signature) and addressed to the CBN for payment of foreign election observers.

Odoh Eric Ocheme, Adamu Abubakar and Imam Abubakar, were fingered as the three key suspects who carried out the forgery and fraudulent withdrawal. Their names have been submitted to the Interpol red notice, which would help the foreign police locate and arrest them in any of Interpol’s 196 member nations including the UK, U.S., France, Australia, Finland, St Kitts & Nevis, Russia, Malta and others.

“In the course of the special investigator’s assignment, Mr Odoh Eric Ocheme, (a employee of the CBN) now at large and the other two accomplices, also now at large, were discovered to have conspired and forged documents in the name of the President, Federal Republic of Nigeria with which they stole about US$6,230,000 (Six million, two hundred and thirty thousand dollars), in cash, from the coffers of the CBN,” the special investigator wrote in the letter applying for the red notice.

Mr Obazee, appointed by President Bola Tinubu in 2023, supplied the passport details of Mr Ocheme, the lead suspect, to the police to help the government apprehend him quickly.

“The data page of Odoh Eric Ocheme’s Nigerian passport no. B50082800, duly certified true copies of the warrants and the order of the court to that effect are hereby attached,” the letter indicated.

Boss Mustapha, former secretary to the government of the federation, testified in court on Tuesday that neither he nor then president Muhammadu Buhari approved the $6.2 million payment for international election observers.