Mr. Muhammed Kazaure, a member of the House of Representatives, has raised the alarm about the theft of stamp duty proceeds of N89 trillion.
In an interview with the Guardian in Abuja, the congressman from Jigawa claimed to have legitimate paperwork proving the existence of such assets held by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
He insisted that the bank only sends 60% of the stamp duty revenue to the government, with the remaining 40% going to individual wallets, and claimed that the apex bank has not remitted that money as tax.
In response to the administration’s denial of his claims yesterday, the lawmaker recalled that president Muhammadu Buhari had established a presidential committee in June of this year to collect stamp duty from 2015 to the present, with him serving as secretary.
Kazaure claims that the president is concerned about the enormous sums that have not been submitted because he wants to pay off the country’s obligations before leaving office and that the money in question would have gone a great way toward doing so.
The legislator provided documentation to back up his claims, which revealed that Godwin Emefeile, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, had retained an additional N171 billion from the proceeds of stamp duty in the bank’s private investors account.
He demanded that the CBN boss be placed on administrative leave so that the appropriate authorities could look into the situation.
