₦1.37 Trillion Unrecovered: The Auditor General’s Report That Put Governor Yemi Cardoso Central Bank On Trial

Secrets Reporters

The Central Bank of Nigeria is supposed to be the guardian of the nation’s monetary integrity, the last institution Nigerians should have to ask “where did the money go?” Yet a Federal Government audit report scrutinized by SecretsReporters lays out, in the government’s own words, well over ₦1.37 trillion in public funds tied up in unrecovered state loans and doubtful bank facilities sitting inside the CBN under the leadership of Governor Olayemi Cardoso, with auditors explicitly warning of the “diversion of public funds to private purposes.”

The single largest figure in the report is staggering on its own. Of ₦1,814,380,639,812.84 disbursed to Nigerian states across nine separate CBN intervention programmes in 2023, only ₦562,285,195,095.03 had been recovered as at 31st December 2023, leaving an outstanding principal balance of ₦1,252,095,444,724.82 still owed to the Central Bank by state governments which is a direct breach of Paragraph 227(ii) of the Financial Regulations 2009.

Auditors warned this exposure carries the risk of “diversion of public funds to private purposes” and “possible huge net exposure of Bank’s funds.” The Bank’s own management insists the balance had fallen to ₦734,085,816,033.53 by the second quarter of 2025, citing reconciliation, legal action and direct debits of participating financial institutions, but even on that improved figure, over ₦734 billion in public money extended to states remains uncollected, with the Ministry of Finance’s suspension of the Irrevocable Standing Payment Order mechanism now cited as an active obstacle to getting it back. Money handed to state governments, meant to be repaid into the nation’s coffers, is instead sitting as a trillion-naira-plus hole in the CBN’s books, with excuses standing where recovery should be.

It gets worse when the audit turns to Nigeria’s dead and dying banks. The CBN carried ₦116,179,000,000.00 in outstanding loans and receivables extended to distressed and liquidated banks, still sitting on its books as at the end of 2022. When auditors asked to see the 2023 financial statements to check what progress had been made recovering this money, Cardoso simply could not produce them with no updated accounts, no schedule of recoveries, no outstanding balance breakdown, nothing to scrutinise. A full year later, the figure had not moved by a single Naira.

This is a direct breach of Section 85(2) of the 1999 Constitution, the very provision that empowers the Auditor-General to examine and report on Nigeria’s public accounts, and the Bank’s own response confirms the amount “remains unchanged,” with the CBN still merely “engaging” the NDIC to explore recovery years after these banks collapsed.