There is a Yoruba saying that states an elder worth his or her name crunches kola nut with reckless abandon.
It is not just the African dictatorship of the elderly that entitles the elder to such reckless crunching, the sort that could even jerk awake a light sleeper. It is rather his or her moral impregnability — that heavy responsibility that earns the exalted privilege of elderly impunity.
This is, of course, no expose on African tradition. It is rather linking African mores to the Jonathan presidential suspension (read sacking, with a sleight of hand) of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.
Mallam Sanusi had earlier rebuffed a presidential threat to “resign”, insisting — and rightly so — that by Section 11(2)(f) of the CBN Act of 2007, only a presidential request, backed by two-thirds of the Senate, could sack him.
Of course, in the immediate post-sack hubbub, the law and its intendment have fallen prime victims. Outside the grey area between sack and suspension, the infusing of the Nigerian presidency with a Kabiyesi [Yoruba for unquestionable] syndrome appears on the ascendancy, no matter what the law says or does not say.
If Sanusi must continue to blow the whistle on the government, why didn’t he resign, goes the emotive query. To be sure, that is not unreasonable, if morality were to be the issue: a whistle blower is, after all, a “traitor” exposing a peer. Fine morality!
But if a probable crime had been committed, and the law to which all the parties concerned had sworn to protect insists on somebody squealing? Which one trumps the other: the morality of silence or the legality of squealing?
But let’s even assume (without conceding, as the lawyers would say) that morality prevailed; and President Goodluck Jonathan, incensed by (im)moral outrage — the law be damned! — moved to sack the CBN governor, why the virtual tip-toe in doing it?
Why didn’t the president, like the iconic African elder, crunch his kola loud enough by announcing the sack with a flurry, with the CBN governor in-situ? Why watch on tip-toe, like a conspiratorial Tom, the CBN governor safely away in Niger Republic, before announcing his ouster? Perhaps a classic study in presidential cowardice?
Whereas the president of the Federal Republic appears to hug, like a second skin, opacity in state matters, the CBN governor would appear sold on transparency, at least when the issue is alleged humongous stealing of oil money, using the ever-opaque Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) as conduit.
Still, the you’re-shielding-oil-money-thieves Vs you-spend-CBN-money-recklessly controversy, which led to Sanusi’s sack through the back door, somewhat echoes the inimitable Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, in one of his ever memorable numbers: “You be thief/I no be thief; You be rogue/I no be rogue, You be armed robber/I no be armed robber … argument, argument, argu; argument, argument, argu …”
But even if the argument is between two camps of rogues, as Jonathan’s presidential spinners are slanting the Sanusi sack saga, it is perhaps cold comfort that one roguish camp is at least transparent in its claims! But the Jonathan camp can’t even claim that credit — which is a pity! Not for the Jonathan Presidency the Caesar code: Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion!
Mallam Sanusi has cried himself hoarse there is alleged systematic stealing of oil money, which scale this country had never witnessed, even with its A++ record in public graft, under the Jonathan Presidency.
At the beginning of the end, Sanusi wrote Jonathan a secret memo that there was a “crater” of US $49.8 billion in the nation’s purse, and pointed fingers at some smart alecs at NNPC. Jonathan did nothing — until former President Olusegun Obasanjo, fighting his own battle of relevance, included the allegations in his ill-tempered letter to the president.
Predictably, Jonathan’s ire was not at those who allegedly short-changed the treasury, but at Sanusi who raised the query. The boy who once upon a time had no shoes has become a man comfy with alleged humongous stealing, that may condemn millions of current and future Nigerian kids to be shoeless! When eventually some reconciliation was done, between US $10.8 billion (NNPC’s claim) and US $ 12 billion (Sanusi’s claim) still remained unaccounted for — except for some hocus-pocus that NNPC used to explain it away!
The end of the end came with the Sanusi allegation, before the Senate finance committee probe, that another US $20 billion (more than the 2014 budget) could also have vanished! Now, that was not a CBN governor grandstanding at a press conference. That was a CBN governor, using hard evidence, to make a presentation before parliament, in the best tradition of open societies.
But today, there is no satisfactory answer to that query — though the probe continues. Jonathan’s classical response was to kill the messenger, with the fond hope the bad message would disappear! It is a moot point if that query would die with Sanusi’s illegal sack. But again, Jonathan has proved himself a champion of opacity, whose body language is mad at probity but frolics with fiscal iniquity.
To counter the missing US $20 billion charge, the Jonathan Presidency would appear to have initiated its own charge of N168 billion, which the Sanusi CBN administration allegedly recklessly spent. The presidential whistle-blower is the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRCN), which findings suddenly jumped into the fray, like some Deus-ex-machina in a Greek tragic play.
For all you know, there could be substance to the anti-Sanusi allegation. But the circumstances of its making, combined with the reported threat of a Sanusi trial, all point to a not-too-unfamiliar tactic of muddying the waters and bandying threats.
All that portrays the Jonathan Presidency as a dog that barks, not out of strength but out of fear. But it would take its chances, that not a few would fall for such cheap bluff and bluster.
Mallam Sanusi has many faults. He is a gadfly; and he is a tad too voluble when taciturnity would do just fine. Besides, playing CBN governor-activist in a sleaze-rich administration is tantamount, to parody that tennis term of unforced error, to unforced fatality.
But he has been consistent on government transparency as the Jonathan crowd has been on opacity. He therefore appears to have put the fear of God in the Jonathan ensemble.
It is a classic match-up between powerless conscience and conscienceless power! Still, history has shown conscience is not so powerless, as not to eventually trounce conscienceless power.
After the Justice Ayo Salami saga, the Sanusi case is yet another red alert at the clear and present danger of an opaque presidency, particularly when the issue is alleged mindless exchequer raid. But when asked to probe these allegations, President Jonathan gets grumpy!
Fortunately however, election times are nigh. With all these allegations of sleaze and negative presidential reactions, can you entrust your exchequer to this man for four more years?
It is no time to sit on the fence!
