Former CBN Govenor, Wife Buy N15.6 Billion Property In UK – The Cable

Paul Ogwuma, former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria
(CBN) and his wife have acquired property worth £33 million (N15.6
billion), a UK investigative journalism magazine has revealed.

According
to the magazine, Private Eye, Ogwuma, who served as CBN governor for
six years has “amassed a £33m British property empire”.

In its
report titled “Abuja on Thames” the paper said it “has identified a
network of 15 British companies owned or controlled by Anna Ogwuma,”
wife of the governor, adding that her husband “looted his country under
1990s military dictatorship”.

“Paul Ogwuma, 86, was governor of
the Central Bank of Nigeria during the brutal and kleptocratic rule of
General Sani Abacha, when the bank was the latter’s personal piggy-bank.
Some estimates suggest looting under Abacha ran to billions of
dollars,” the report read.

“Under his successor for one year,
retired general Abdulsalami Abubakar, Ogwuma oversaw a depletion in
Nigeria’s foreign currency reserves of around $3bn, or 40%”.

“Between
2002 and 2017, her companies were used for 20 separate property
purchases. They ranged from commercial sites in the north of England to
luxury apartments in west London.

“Among them are townhouses in
Kensington and Paddington, a couple of apartments in Mayfair, and
premises in Bishop’s Stortford town centre that currently house a branch
of Greggs.”

The report added that “although the Abacha era and
its excesses are receding into history, banks that were often complicit
at the time might be expected to know some of this history.

“Yet
Mrs Ogwuma’s most valuable properties were either bought or remortgaged
with loans from Barclays Bank (which handled $170m of Abacha’s
ill-gotten wealth) and Lloyds Bank in the years after 2015.

“While
times have moved on, so has the law on money laundering, and Mrs
Ogwuma’s lavish property buying should have prompted questions about the
origin of her money. The looting of Africa has a long legacy on the
streets of Britain”.

Ogwuma served as the managing director/CEO
of Union Bank of Nigeria prior to his appointment as the Governor of
Central Bank of Nigeria in September, 1993.

Source:- Thecableng