A British lawmaker, Tom Tugendhat has been challenged by a former Nigerian military ruler, Yakubu Gowon for accusing him of stealing half of the Central Bank of Nigeria. 

Tugendhat made the claims during a debate on the Lekki tollgate shootings of protesters.

Gowon told Channels Television that he was disappointed by the lawmaker’s claims and challenged him (the parliamentarian) to check his (Gowon) records during and after he served as Head of State. 

“It is certainly surprising, and I am disappointed that a British parliamentarian could make such a statement without checking the facts of what he was saying,” Gowon said.“I honestly was disappointed that such a remark is made.

The record of my service to the nation is there for everybody to see and even the British government itself, and I don’t know how somebody got the information to make such a very ridiculous statement,” he said. The former military leader called on the British authority to do something and bring the lawmaker to order, to check his facts before he makes such allegation. 

Gowon sees the allegations as more or less an insult to the “leadership of Nigeria and certainly an insult to me to say that I did something of the sort to take half of Nigeria’s Central Bank and I must have put it in a British bank.

“So, he should check all the British banks to see whether any such thing has happened, and he (the UK lawmaker) will be surprised that I was not being held for money laundering,” he added.