The end of troubles for the embattled former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele appears not in near sight as he seems to have a lot to explain regarding the beneficiaries of the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme funds that were managed by the apex bank under his watch.

Three days to the deadline given by President Bola Tinubu, federal government agencies in collaboration with law enforcement operatives are struggling to recover 1.1TR Anchor Borrowers’ Programme given to rice farmers as loans since 2018.

In 1.1TR CBN given to the beneficiaries of the ABP since its inception, but only a little above N546 billion was repaid.
With the directive by President Tinubu, it is expected that over N577 billion would be recovered from defaulting farmers and officials who diverted the money.

At the inception of the programme, hundreds of rice farmers were captured through their registered associations and were given loan in form of inputs, which includes seeds, agro chemicals, fertilisers, among others.

They were expected to repay the loan at the end of the farming season either in cash or by paddy rice.

However, recovering the loans from the farmers have been the major issue to the apex bank, as all efforts to retrieve the money through their association had yielded little result.