Almost a year after being fired, Aliyu Abdulhameed, the former managing director of the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), was taken into custody.
Anaedoonline.ng is aware that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) established NIRSAL, a $500 million non-bank financial organisation.
It was developed to control credit risks associated with agribusiness in Nigeria.
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Recall that in 2018 Abdulhameed was removed from his position because to accusations of corruption, including a N5.6 billion wheat project intended for farmers in the states of Jigawa and Kano.
The CBN Board approved his termination after the President gave its assent in December of the previous year.
In January of last year, Anaedoonline.ng looked into claims that three investor businesses had conspired with NIRSAL officials to syphon a multibillion-naira loan guaranteed by the organisation for the cultivation of 20,000 hectares of dry season wheat in Kano and Jigawa States.
During the course of the inquiry, the platform disclosed that it had gone to the two states’ impacted villages, where farmers said they had been duped.
The project’s goal, according to local officials, is to improve the lives of 20,000 smallholder farmers.
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They said that impacted farmers were promised fertiliser and other inputs for the wheat plantation when farms were made available, but they never received any of these after that.
Abdulhameed and the three investment firms refuted any misconduct.
However, there was fear and terror among the top brass of the CBN and the NIRSAL when the Special Investigator, who had been appointed by President Bola Tinubu and his support team to look into the activities of the apex bank and affiliated companies, went into action in September of this year.
The NIRSAL and the CBN’s Anchor Borrowers’ Programme, which have been at the core of investigations for years, were allegedly the focus of Special Investigator Jim Obazee and his team, under the direction of DCP Eloho.
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