By Femi Aribisala
ONE of the more annoying things about
Nigeria is that our thieves are bad thieves.
Conventionally, thieves operate at the night,
out of respect for the homeowner and law-
enforcement agencies. Not in Nigeria: thieves
operate here in broad daylight in absolute
contempt of everybody.
In Nigeria, thieves know they will not be
caught. They know if they are caught, they
will not be tried. They know if they are tried,
they will not go to jail. Therefore, there is a
culture of impunity in Nigeria which makes
the country a holiday-resort for thieves and
robbers.
Jail or dismissal?
Nothing speaks more eloquently about this
culture of impunity than the CBN under
Lamido Sanusi. Sanusi’s posture as CBN
Governor is an insult to Nigerians. He ran the
place as a personal estate. He flouted every
financial regulation.
Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi
Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi
He gave away government money in a
flagrant manner that would give pause to
even billionaire Mike Adenuga. And then when
he knew the game was up, he decided to
blow the lid on NNPC financial indiscretions, in
order to distract attention and attract public
support and sympathy. Nigerians should not
fall for this “mago-mago.” Lamido Sanusi
should not only be sacked, he should be tried
and, if convicted, should be jailed.
The government has called Sanusi’s bluff. In a
sleight of hand, he has been summarily
dismissed from office under the guise of
suspension. This has created some brouhaha
because the President needs Senate approval
for the dismissal of a CBN Governor. But the
president has found a way round that
impediment. Sanusi has been suspended; he
has not been fired. Surely, the president has
the power to suspend a public employee for
questionable conduct, pending the
confirmation of his wrongdoing. If the
allegations against him are found to be
without substance, he can then return to his
post.
However, since Sanusi’s term will soon expire,
the president has gone right along to
nominate his replacement. It is all politics, and
not just Nigerian-style. Separation of powers is
a judicious principle of federalist government,
but there is something anomalous about a
CBN governor transforming himself overnight
into an opposition politician spokesman. There
is also something unacceptable about the
arrogance of Sanusi which makes him feel he
is an untouchable. Under the circumstances,
his suspension/dismissal from office is not
surprising. Indeed, it is all the more
imperative given the financial improprieties
that have characterised his tenure in office.
Distorted timeline
The major sticking point with Sanusi’s
“dismissal” is the widespread assumption that
it is payback for him blowing the whistle
about the whopping $20 billion missing from
NNPC accounts. However, there is every
probability that the opposite is what
happened. The government was the first to
query Sanusi about his financial improprieties.
When he could not explain them, Sanusi went
on the offensive by making public statements
about missing monies at NNPC. This would
explain why his allegations tuned out to be
shambolic.
The last thing a country needs is a CBN
governor who talks frivolously. The word of a
CBN governor has implications for financial
market volatility; therefore he must mark his
words. He must speak with confidence and
precision. Not so with Lamido Sanusi. Sanusi
went public and made a monkey of his
credibility. First, he said $49 billion was
missing from NNPC accounts. Then he said it
was $10 billion; and then it was $20 billion.
What will it be tomorrow? How come Sanusi
did not determine precisely the amount
before broadcasting it to the world? It would
appear that Sanusi’s reckless disclosures
came out of the need for him to cover his
tracks at the CBN. Knowing that the book
would soon be thrown at him, he decided to
lay the grounds for saying he was being
accused of financial improprieties because he
exposed those of others.
This is not to deny that there are, in all
probability, huge financial improprieties
hidden in NNPC accounts. However, the very
fact that a CBN governor decided to go public
with them is highly suspect. A CBN governor
does not make such public disclosures as CBN
governor. He resigns first. It is even more
suspect given the fact that the very person
who would have us believe he is taking the
moral high ground with these disclosures is
the same person we have now learnt has run
the accounts of the CBN like a bull in a china
shop. Sanusi is anything but a foolish man. He
surely knows that those who live in glass
houses don’t throw stones.
Sanusi knew something was up. Therefore, he
decided to go on the offensive. What he has
done is to curry favour the Nigerian public by
raising alarm about missing monies, even
when he did not have the full facts, in order to
preempt the disclosures about his own
financial improprieties.
This strategy has succeeded in part. Sanusi
has immediately become the darling of the
opposition APC party. Muhammadu Buhari,
the self-styled apostle of anti-corruption, has
come out in his staunch defense, giving us a
taste of the kind of anti-corruption his APC has
in mind. There is a déjà vu to this. It is the
kind of hypocritical anti-corruption where the
airports and seaports of Nigeria can be closed
to everyone, but the Emir of Gwandu can
bring in 53 suitcases under the escort of the
aide-de-camp of the Head of State.
Financial atrocities
The financial atrocities in the CBN under
Sanusi are simply outrageous. If this is how
government agencies steal and mismanage
public funds, then Nigeria is in more trouble
than we have ever imagined. CBN accounts
under Sanusi read like pure fiction. While
crying foul about missing money in NNPC,
Sanusi failed to account for missing monies in
CBN. Investigating the CBN in April 2013, the
Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRC)
discovered that ?38.23 billion was missing.
The money was said to have been paid to
MINT- a subsidiary of the CBN. However, MINT
accounts showed no such money was
received.
It is only in Nigeria that you can have a
Central Bank governor spend government
money anyhow at his own discretion. Sanusi
did not just spend a few thousand naira
whimsically. He did not just give away millions
of naira like Aliko Dangote. He gave away
billions. The government reveals that Sanusi
gave away nothing less than ?163 billion in no
less than 63 “intervention projects” in
different parts of the country. Remember this:
that is more than the entire 2014 budget of
Edo State.
Just listen to this: the CBN is said to have
paid ?38 billion to the Nigerian Security
Printing and Minting Company (NSPMC) in
2011 for printing banknotes. However this is
in excess of the total turnover of NSPMC that
same year, which was only ?29 billion. The
CBN claims to have paid Emirate Airline ?511
million for currency distribution nationwide in
2011 when the airline does not have a local
charter service in Nigeria. It reports ?425
million was paid to Wing Airline, but the airline
is not even registered in Nigeria. It also claims
to have paid Associated Airline ?1 billion for
the same purpose, but the airline did not have
up to a billion-naira turnover in 2011.
In its 2011 account under “sundries” (i.e.
unexplained expenses), Sanusi’s CBN reported
an expenditure of ?1.1 billion. For legal and
professional fees that same year, it claimed to
have spent an amazing ?20 billion. This is
simply mind-boggling. So mind-boggling in
fact that naïve people like me don’t believe a
word of it. These are just crooked details
designed to mask the massive corruption and
graft under Sanusi’s watch.
In 2012, ?1.2 billion was listed as expenses on
“private guards” and “lunch for policemen.”
Wow! These policemen must have been
having caviar for lunch. Similarly, ?1.6 billion
was spent on newspapers, books and
periodicals alone that same year. Pull another
leg. Who believes this kind of rigmarole?
Still in 2012, ?3 billion was spent on
“promotional activities.” Pray, to whom was
the CBN doing this promotion? Where did
these promotional activities take place and to
what purpose? Was it in Nigeria or in outer
space? Which bank was CBN in competition
with? Was it the World Bank or the African
Development Bank? Was the CBN trying to
attract depositors or customers? Or was it
paying legislators so that its powers would not
be curtailed?
Nobody should condone Sanusi’s financial
recklessness. He also played Father Christmas
with Nigeria’s money. According to the
government, Sanusi’s CBN wrote-off loans to
the tune of ?40 billion. Without board or
presidential approval, Sanusi spent ?743
million of CBN money acquiring 7 percent
shares of the International Islamic
Management Corporation of Malaysia, contrary
to the provisions of the CBN Act.
Off to Kirikiri
It is a big indictment of the Jonathan
administration that this impunity was
tolerated for this long and was only addressed
after Sanusi became a political
embarrassment to the government. The
billion-naira question now is what is going to
happen to Sanusi. Will he get away with these
corrupt practices or will he be prosecuted to
the full extent of the law? My position is that
we need to chart a new course in the
treatment of corruption in Nigeria. If Sanusi is
truly guilty of these improprieties, he should
be sent to jail; for a very long time.
However, the bet is on that nothing will
happen to him beyond his dismissal from
office. It appears nothing is also going to
happen to Deziani Allison-Madueke, the
Minister of Petroleum. The missing $20 billion
at NNPC will also be swept under the carpet.
All the signs of a cover-up are already
apparent. The FRC indicted all the Deputy
Governors of the CBN along with the Governor
and asked that they all be sacked. However,
not only were they not sacked, one of them
has been made the new Acting Governor. In
all likelihood, this culture of impunity will
remain for the simple reason that it seems to
go all the way to the very highest echelons of
the Nigerian government.
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/02/lamido-
sanusi-end-kirikiri/#sthash.wYAIBkxR.dpuf
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