For the duration of his hyperactive and fairly controversial tenure, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi never quite won my unalloyed support for some of his critical policies as Central Bank of Nigeria governor. Under him, for instance, the CBN’s acts of charity rankled in many regards. His banking reform measures were also implemented with a flamboyance and uppityness that left me wondering whether his unduly feisty approach to banks and banking regulations was not more appropriate for tinseltown than for apex banking. Then he often talked nineteen to the dozen, when restraint and reticence would do, and projected himself as the ultimate Nigerian iconoclast, a sort of business and class egalitarian indifferent to the accoutrements of the wealthy as he was not incommoded by the lowliness of the classless.
Indeed, as some elements of the report prepared against him by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) indicated, Mallam Sanusi, who was brusquely suspended a few days ago by President Goodluck Jonathan, might be inadequate in some respects and needed to painstakingly convince his traducers his integrity was not sullied by any identifiable form of financial and regulatory brashness. Perhaps he still will. But whatever might be said of the suspended CBN governor, no one could accuse of him of a lack of dignity and character. I had reservations about some of his policies as CBN governor, but I never stopped respecting him for what he stood for and how pluckily he fought for what he believed. He called his soul his own and displayed a robustness of principles seldom seen in public office in these parts.
In contrast to the dour integrity shown by Mallam Sanusi in public office, Dr Jonathan has handled power most obliquely and impiously, if not with the irritating absolutism of a monarch. The president claims to have suspended Mallam Sanusi and describes the process as innocuously routine, but everything surrounding the suspension indicated the dismissive finality of a sack. Not only was the former CBN boss removed, his temporary and permanent replacements were hastily named with a temerity that reeked of political insensitivity and unconstitutionality, and with such absolute lack of grace and class that leaves one wondering how it was possible for Dr Jonathan to demean the Nigerian presidency to such level of pettiness.
Again, in contrast to his dithering over the proven allegations against former Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah, and in consonance with the subterfuge evident in the suspension of former President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Salami, Dr Jonathan has choked and undermined the constitution by removing Mallam Sanusi in contemptuous disregard for the law. The excuse he gave for sacking the former CBN boss is that he breached some financial rules. But in reality, the removal was probably due to the president’s exasperation with Mallam Sanusi’s volubility and irreverence. The suspended CBN boss had complained bitterly at least twice about the NNPC’s unorthodox bookkeeping methods and financial malfeasance. And the complaints had elicited intense controversies and triggered insinuations that the Jonathan presidency condoned corruption, body language and all. But the snag is that the oil agency reports to the Minister of Petroleum, Diezani Alison-Madueke, one of Dr Jonathan’s favourite cabinet members, if not the most favoured minister. Two attempts to reconcile the books of the NNPC merely reduced the gaps, not eliminated them, and gave impression the agency was nothing but a sinkhole and a conduit for funding the politics of the ruling party.
By peremptorily sacking Mallam Sanusi, Dr Jonathan has finally given indication he will henceforth not be distracted by the constitution in the pursuit of his ambition to govern Nigeria along absolutist lines. Though he was careful not to cite any constitutional provision in sacking Mallam Sanusi, perhaps knowing full well that no such provisions existed to back him, it was nonetheless clear that he gave indication his action was lawful. But there is no conceivable way of reading or interpreting the CBN Act, as amended, particularly the applicable Section 11, to back the president’s action. It is intriguing that any lawyer, not to talk of any rational person, could suggest that the said provision could be construed any other way. Section 11 is not only clear and direct; it is not ambiguous at all. The president himself knew this.
The CBN Act doubtless empowers the president to remove a CBN governor if necessary, but that power is circumscribed by and contingent upon the approval of two-thirds of the members of the Senate. The president completely discountenanced this provision and went ahead to do the unthinkable. We may not like Mallam Sanusi, but if executive, legislative and judicial actions are to be based on whom we like or dislike, we would have complete chaos. Dr Jonathan, it is clear, is besotted to some of his ministers. Anyone that challenges his favourites pokes a finger in his eyes. When Dr Jonathan suspended Justice Salami and we failed to get him to reverse himself, we unwittingly approved the president’s resort to self-help. If we fail in checking this new impeachable breach of the constitution, we should ready ourselves for more flagrant breaches of the constitution in a tension-soaked election year.
The sacking of Mallam Sanusi is not just a case of the president getting rid of a headache; it is an indication of the underlying methodology of the Jonathan presidency and an example of his dreadful unease and impatience with the restraining and civilising leashes of the constitution. Dr Jonathan, I have said repeatedly, lacks the depth and idiosyncratic understanding to appreciate the kind of democracy Nigeria should run, and the kind of country we should have, one that should serve as example and provide leadership to the rest of Africa, and one that should challenge even the most democratic country in the world. Lacking such understanding and discipline, Dr Jonathan has constituted himself and his government into a tyranny run by a camorra of friends, avaricious aides and petulant family members. We are in far worse trouble than we imagine, especially in an election year, for the president has more dangerous concoctions on tap.
If we look forward to any salvation, it will certainly not come from the presidency. Those characters in the presidency are too far gone to be redeemable. If we look to the legislature, we would have to ponder which direction to go: is it to the House of Representatives or to the Senate? If it is to the House, it is satisfying to note that that assembly of men is fairly radical and of some use. But the constitution does not give them the kind of powers that would make them tame the president in the face of a grovelling and ingratiating Senate. And if it is to the Senate we look, we would be seeing nothing but a chimera. The Nigerian Senate is a party to the conspiracy to undermine the constitution, blissfully unaware that they are in effect undermining their own very existence. They see themselves more like an arm of the ruling party, nay, a department in the Jonathan presidency. They will do nothing radical or altruistic; and they will not lift a finger in the defence of the people or the constitution.
Might the judiciary be of any help? Mallam Sanusi has already indicated he would be seeking help in its hallowed precincts. But litigation produces its own paradoxes. By going to court, Mallam Sanusi will be denying us a confirmation of the Senate’s infamy and conspiracy with the Jonathan presidency. The Senate will cite the case in court and decline discussions on the unlawful act of suspending the CBN governor. And since there is already an acting CBN governor, as it were, it would not matter whether the Senate declined to confirm the president’s nominee, Godwin Emefiele. The president can afford to wait it out. So, too, disingenuously, can the conniving Senate. In June, after Mallam Sanusi’s natural tenure expires, Emefiele’s confirmation will be done, and it will seem natural and unimpeachable.
I restate once again that the problem is not Mallam Sanusi’s competence or style. The problem is that he raised fundamental and disquieting concerns about financial disparities in that most disturbing of arcana, the NNPC, and the fact that the president in sacking Sanusi acted most precipitately and brutishly by assaulting the constitution. If we condone these infringements, we will not only be exhibiting our powerlessness in the face of intense financial impropriety on the part of government agencies, we would also be signalling to Dr Jonathan that his monarchical tendencies, his contempt for the constitution, his demeaning attachment to a few of his cabinet members and his lawless predilections will be winked at. Dr Jonathan has taken the first awful steps in the direction of Somalia, Central African Republic, Sudan/South Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo. It is no exaggeration to say he has thus taken us closer to the precipice than at any other time in our anguished and chequered history, including the civil war era. Should we indeed be compelled to endure four more years of Dr Jonathan and his lawlessness, as some pundits are projecting, there is no telling what horrifying fate the country would meet.
