Police mount search for CBN staffer who forged Buhari's signature and stole $6.2m

CENTRAL Bank of Nigeria (CBN) staffer Odoh Ocheme and two other persons have been declared wanted by the Nigeria Police Force for allegedly forging the signature of former President Muhammadu Buhari to steal $6.2m from the bank.

Apparently, Mr Ocheme, along with two accomplices identified as Adamu Abubakar and Imam Abubakar, all of whom are at large, connived to commit the offence. In a letter addressed to the assistant inspector-general of police, deputy police commissioner Eloho Okpoziakpo, the CBN special investigator, called for the immediate arrest of all three persons.

Mr Okpoziakpo's letter read: “The special investigator appointed by the president and commander-in-chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to investigate the CBN-related entities and other key government business entities, kindly requests you to place the above-named individuals on Interpol red notice. In the course of the special investigator’s assignment, Mr Odoh Ocheme, (a staff 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 $6,230,000 in cash, from the coffers of the CBN.

“Consequent upon the above, a charge was filed and warrants of arrest have been issued by the Federal High Court of Nigeria, Abuja Division, presided over by Hon Justice I. E. Ekwo. The special investigator, therefore, prays you to use your good offices to request that the defendants be placed on Interpol red notice, with a view to apprehending and repatriating them from any of the Interpol member states to which they may have flown.”

He added that the data page of Mr Ocheme’s Nigerian international passport and certified true copies of the warrants and the order of the court to have been attached to his letter. Meanwhile, the federal government has filed a six-count charge against Mr Ocheme and his accomplices.