The war of words between Senior Advocate of Nigeria Femi Falana and former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria rumbles with Falana calling Soludo’s demand for an apology a joke.
Falana had earlier questioned Soludo’s leadership of the CBN during his time at the helm and had petitioned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to look into the allegations of diversion of public funds from the Federation Account and the nation’s Foreign Reserves.
Soludo had shot back saying that he had done nothing wrong while heading the CBN and had labelled Falana as ignorant over the inner workings of the banking system.
Falana has, however, launched a counter-attack stating that Soludo was only making his point for him.
“For the avoidance of doubt, I wish to reiterate that it was the management of the CBN which claimed to have given out its own “share” of 7 billion dollars from the foreign reserves estimated at 38 billion dollars at the material time” he said.
“Is Professor Soludo insisting that CBN under his management was entitled to any ‘share’ of the nation’s foreign reserves?
“In any case, whether it was a deposit or its own share of the foreign reserves, did the CBN ever announce that the deposit had been paid back to the foreign reserves which belong to the three tiers of government?
“If there is nothing to hide, why did the CBN ignore the request of the Civil Society Network Against Corruption for information on the ‘deposit’ of 7 billion dollars?
“As far as Soludo is concerned, these allegations are laughable and betray a lack of knowledge of how a bank such as CBN works.
“Has AMCON not been set up to recover those loans and deposits running to several trillions of Naira? For goodness sake, how does a CBN work outside the ambit of the Constitution and the Central Bank Act, 2007?,”
Falana continued saying; “Frankly speaking, I am of the view that Professor Soludo’s demand for an apology is a joke since it was the CBN management under him that claimed to have given its own ‘share’ of $7 billion to the 14 banks.”