Viral video of dollar stash attributed to Emefiele is from Sudan

Recently, a video appeared on the Nigerian social media space showing a large cash trove purported to have been found inside the home of Godwin Emefiele, the suspended governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

In the 26-second silent video, two men were seen counting large amounts of cash – of dollar denomination – with a machine.

An accompanying text with the video claimed that the house where the money was being counted belonged to Emefiele.

It was noticed that a video was trending on some social media platforms, including WhatsApp, claiming that money was found in Emefiele’s house after his arrest.

Investigation revealed that the viral video was from Sudan.

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To ascertain the source of the video, the video clip into keyframes in which one of them was suggested to Google’s reverse image tool.

With this process, the video traced to April 22, 2019, when a large reservoir of cash — totaling over $7 million — was found at the house of Omar Bashir, Sudan’s ousted president.

Bashir was a former Sudanese military officer and politician who served as the seventh head of state of Sudan under various titles from 1989 until 2019 when he was deposed.

Emefiele has been on the radar of the DSS since 2022 over alleged terrorism financing, an allegation he strongly denies.

Moments after President Bola Tinubu announced the suspension of Emefiele as CBN governor on Friday, there were reports that operatives of the DSS had arrested him.

After a series of back and forth, DSS on Saturday said Emefiele was in its custody for “some investigative reasons”.

When contacted for comments, Peter Afunaya, Department of State Services (DSS) spokesperson said that the viral video “is fake”.