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Tag: Sanusi Lamido Sanusi

  • GEJ vs Sanusi, the whistleblower

    GEJ vs Sanusi, the whistleblower

    Last Thursday’s sack of Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi as Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria by President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was a bombshell even though it was hardly surprising. From the moment the former CBN boss was issued a query three or so years ago by then National Security Adviser to the president, late General Andrew Owoye Azazi – a query he rightly ignored because it did not come directly from the president himself – for a remark he made abroad linking Boko Haram insurgency with what he said was the financial neglect of the North by Abuja, it was obvious that if the authorities had their way, they would’ve fired him long ago.

    What apparently stood in their way was the CBN Act which said its governor and his four deputies cannot be fired without the support of two-thirds of members of the Senate the president needs to hire them in the first place, something he could not be sure of, given the uncertain political terrain that has lately confronted his ruling party. From his defensive answers in his media chat two days ago over his firing of the governor, it is obvious that the president must have been advised, more like misadvised, that he could go round this obstacle by announcing that he was merely suspending the governor.

    Trouble is, the law is completely silent on whether or not the president can, short of firing them, suspend those he’d hired. I am told by some of my legal expert friends that a cardinal principle of law is to give the benefit of doubt to an accused where a law says nothing or is ambiguous about the issue in contention.

    A more satisfactory solution for everyone in such cases is to resort to the courts for interpretation. Obviously, this would’ve taken more than the four months or so Sanusi had left to serve out his five-year tenure. It seems the way the man started running his mouth about corruption in high places in the oil business foreclosed the option of allowing him to end his tenure quietly since there was no telling how much more damage he could do if he continued talking with the authority of a governor of the CBN.

    The President claimed in his media chat that he has “absolute” powers to suspend the governor. Perhaps he does. However, it remains no more than his opinion until the courts agree with him. Happily, Sanusi, as irrepressible as ever, has said he will go to court to challenge his suspension and has already gone to court successfully to stop the authorities from unleashing their law enforcement and intelligence forces to arrest or detain him.

    Try as he may the President and his team are highly unlikely to ever win the propaganda war between himself and Sanusi. And it’s not just because the former CBN governor, in sharp contrast to our generally incoherent and bumbling president, is as eloquent in speech and in writing as they come from anywhere in the world. It’s also not because the President does not at all have a case against Sanusi. The President may have overstated it when he accused Sanusi’s CBN of being “characterised by various financial recklessness and misconduct” but it seems to me, at least, that in going to equity the former CBN governor did not do so with clean hands.

    In an interview with Metropole magazine after his sack which Daily Trust of last Monday reproduced, Sanusi rejected insinuations by the magazine’s editors that his latest accusations of corruption in the oil business against the authorities was like taking out an insurance against being fired for the charges of recklessness and mismanagement that had been levied against him. “You can never,” he said, “have any insurance in life. What is insurance? The only insurance you have in life is to try to do the right things.”

    As CBN governor, Sanusi did many right things. If nothing else, he, as I said on these page on August 26, 2009, barely a couple of months after taking over from Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo, cleaned up the mess his predecessor created after he had done a good job of creating 25 mega-banks in place of the odd 80 that were in existence, most of them no better than glorified family automated teller machines. Soludo had virtually ruined his good job by becoming too chummy with the bosses of the banks he was supposed to supervise and regulate. The result was a financial crisis which led to a near-collapse of the economy, and certainly of the stock market where you and I bought and sold shares of companies, including those of banks.

    By putting a stop to the casino capitalism which the new big banks had fostered while Soludo kept assuring us that all was well when it wasn’t, Sanusi brought back stability and integrity to the financial market. If that was all he did, the man deserved praise as CBN governor for his courage and competence. But that wasn’t all. His exposure a few years ago of the magnitude of the huge remunerations the federal legislators decreed for themselves in violation of our Constitution, and his refusal to back down from his charge in the face of intimidation by the law makers, if nothing else, served to underscore the public’s concern about how we’ve spent more, much more, of our annual budgets on recurrent items than we have on capital goods since the return of civilian rule in 1999.

    There are even more right things he’s done as CBN governor than these two, but even these alone suffice to show that his tenure has, on balance, done more good than bad to our political-economy.

    The trouble with Sanusi, however, was that he did not measure up to what he had led the public to expect of him as someone who had consistently spoken truth to power before he became CBN governor, and which he continued to do even after.

    The report of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) which the president has relied upon to suspend the governor has listed his many alleged transgressions including the award of no-bid contracts in billions of Naira, the spending of billions on his own and his management’s creature comforts, overpaying legal and public relations consultants and donating hundreds of millions of Naira to victims of natural and man-made disasters without board approval, etc.

    His defence has been that he has the president’s approval for some of the expenditures he’d incurred and that with things like donations he was not the first governor to do so. He also says he has constantly reduced operating management costs since he became governor.

    The governor’s self-defence may well be tenable. But this is beside the point, which is that as a long standing social critic he should’ve known better than to give those in authority sufficient ammunition to impugn his integrity and credibility. And this is exactly what the FRC report has done, even if only a fraction of its charges are true. The specific nature of the FRC report means it cannot be easily dismissed with the wave of a hand.

    That he built a one billion Naira car park at his official residence, as is common knowledge, and the fact that he was always accompanied by a huge and expensive retinue of bank staff, friends and hangers-on alike, to receive awards and honours abroad and here at home, were enough to suggest he did not act with the degree of prudence and integrity his crusade for good governance and transparency demanded of him.

    Sanusi’s alleged transgressions as CBN governor notwithstanding, he clearly has the upper hand against the president in the war for public sympathy and support. The reason is obvious; his alleged transgressions are small beer compared to what the oil thieves and their partners in government have been stealing with impunity.

    So long as the president is seen to be incapable and/or unwilling to take on these mega-thieves, so long will anyone who poses as a whistleblower against corruption in governance win public sympathy, whether his own alleged transgressions are true or not.

    It is, of course, not realistic or even sensible to expect the authorities to fight all cases of corruption or none at all. But when they are seen to ignore cases more deserving of their attention than those they are pursuing, they will find it hard, if not impossible, to convince the public that a case like Sanusi’s is a fight against corruption not a witch-hunt.

     

     

     

     

  • Sanusi’s suspension: Jonathan breached Constitution, CBN Act- Governors

    The Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) led by Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi has accused President Good luck Jonathan of breaching the 1999 Constitution by suspending the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.
    According to the governors, the suspension was aimed at diverting attention from the missing $20bn from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation account, which Sanusi claimed was not remitted to the Federation Account.
    The governors spoke in Abuja at the end of their meeting in the early hours of Tuesday. The meeting started around 8pm on Monday night.
    They also threw their weight behind calls for a forensic audit of the NNPC Account to unravel the truth about the issues.
    Reading a four-paragraph communique at the end of the meeting, Amaechi said: “The suspension of Sanusi by Mr. President is in clear breach of the Nigerian Constitution and the CBN Act, 2007.”

    “The suspension is aimed at diverting attention from the current national discourse on the allegations of corruption and questionable accountability.”

    “We support the call of the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and the Senate Committee on Finance for a forensic audit of the NNPC Account.”
    The governors also accused the Presidency of plotting to impeach the Governor of Nasarawa State, Mallam Tanko Almakura.

     

    The alleged plot, they say, is an assault on the 1999 Constitution.
    The communique reads: “It has come to our notice that the Presidency is plotting to illegally impeach the Governor of Nasarawa State, Mr. Tanko Al-Makura.”

    “We condemn this renewed assault on constitutional democracy.”
    They also faulted the Presidency for what they called deliberate refusal of the Presidency to convene the National Economic Council meeting for seven months.

    The refusal to call the meeting, the governors said, is preventing them from their constitutional opportunity to discuss the “perilous state of the Nigerian economy thus plunging the nation into an economic and political crisis.”

    The governors therefore appealed to the judiciary, especially the Supreme Court, to accelerate the hearing on all constitutional cases especially the suit on the Excess Crude Account and other illegal deductions.

    They condemned the killings in the North-East, but the commended the Nigerian military and other security agencies for their efforts against the insurgents.

    The Forum called on the Federal Government to wake up to its responsibility of protecting lives and property in the country, especially in the North-East.
    Among the governors that attended the meeting included Rivers, Adamawa, Nasarawa, Kano, Lagos, Imo, Sokoto, while deputy governors from Osun, Borno and Edo were also in attendance.

  • Jonathan is incompetent, says Kwankwaso

    Jonathan is incompetent, says Kwankwaso

    Kano State Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso yesterday described President Goodluck Jonathan as an incompetent leader.

    He spoke at the Progressive Governors Forum lecture in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

    The governor was responding to comments by suspended Central Bank Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi at the weekend that Jonathan is a simple man that means well but who is surrounded by incompetent aides.

    Kwankwanso said his response to that comment is an English adage: “Show me your friends and I will tell you who you are.”

    He said the APC would dethrone the PDP next year.

     

  • Niger Delta activist backs Jonathan on Sanusi

    Niger Delta activist backs Jonathan on Sanusi

    A Niger Delta youth activist, businessman and politician, Chief Ayiri Emami, has backed President Goodluck Jonathan on the suspension of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.

    Emami, who is the Akulaga of Warri kingdom in a statement yesterday, said Sanusi ought to have been sacked long ago.

    He described the cashless policy as anti-Niger Delta, adding that he had carried out his responsibilities with arrogance.

    Sanusi said: “The huge fund running into hundreds of billions of naira that were frittered away as donations, grants to religious bodies, payments to moribund airlines, illegal loans write-off and other sundry expenditures made without recourse to the CBN Act and the board were gotten from oil revenue from the Niger Delta region.

    “Mr. Sanusi never deemed it fit to fly one of the numerous private jets to these oil bearing but underdeveloped areas of the Niger Delta region to do an on-the-spot assessment of how the cashless policy would impact negatively on their businesses and lives as it affect payment of salaries to workers and transaction of business in a largely bank-less environment with hundreds of thousands of workers.

    “So, to us in the business hub of the riverine oil bearing area, Sanusi’s cashless policy is definitely cruel and anti-Niger Delta.”

     

  • Jonathan, Sanusi and opacity

    Jonathan, Sanusi and opacity

    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!

  • So, Jonathan is nice?

    So, Jonathan is nice?

    What was Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the suspended Governor of the Central Bank on Nigeria on President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.

    Not a few Nigerians would be surprised that the former boss of Nigeria’s apex bank could have some nice things to say about the president given his strident criticism of the administration, especially its lack luster fight against corruption.

    I am a bit surprised myself but then I remember this wasn’t the first time I would be hearing such a comment being made about the president. I’ve heard from quite a number of people who are very close to him or have access to him that Dr Jonathan is a very good person who meant well for this country but is surrounded by bad people. And each time I hear this I get annoyed. Why should a good man surround himself with bad people?

    Being soft spoken, courteous and nice to people are part of the qualities of a good person, but being good goes beyond that. The ability to attract good people to oneself is also a sign of goodness. You know a man’s character by the kind of company he keeps. Show me your friend, the cliché goes, and I will tell you who you are.

    True, according to Shakespeare there is no art in knowing the mind’s construction from the face, but then if one was deceived by the blandness or innocence of the face it shouldn’t take too long for a good man to discover the bad or rotten person around him.

    It has been a while now that President Goodluck Jonathan has mounted the saddle as Nigeria’s president and leader, and from day one, he has surrounded himself with some characters that not a few Nigerians are not comfortable with, yet he found them good company. What does that say of the president himself? Take the example of the former Minister of Aviation Madam Stella Oduah. I am not sure if there is anybody in this country who does not know that Stella was and still is Goodluck’s friend and it was mainly on the strength of that friendship that she was made a minister of the Federal Republic. She was so good to Jonathan particularly through her ‘Neighbour-to-Neighbour’ organization in the run up to the president’s election that he just had to compensate her for being there for him and she was made a Minister.

    Nothing wrong in that I guess, after all you work well with people that you know and trust. But not too long after, this woman became a square peg in a round hole and almost everybody except the president saw this and complained; to Jonathan, Stella could do no wrong. Even the President didn’t see anything wrong when the two BMW limousine scandal involving the former Minister and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) broke out. Not even the House of Representatives’ or the Presidency’s administrative panel indictment was enough to convince him to drop his friend.

    When he eventually did a couple of weeks ago, many believe it was just a desperate measure to rescue his seemingly doomed second term ambition; not out of conviction to fight corruption. The allegations against Madam Oduah are weighty enough to have warranted her immediate removal or suspension from office but the President chose not to act until he discovered that leaving Stella in office would be an unnecessary baggage that could jeopardize his re-election in 2015. Reluctantly, Stella had to go and for now scot-free.

    If Jonathan is such a good man as we are being told, then he shouldn’t have surrounded himself with the likes of Madam Oduah. Yes, nothing has been proven against the former Minister yet but the President would help Nigeria and his cause by releasing the report of the administrative panel that probed the car scandal and allow the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to handle the case and any other alleged cases of corruption involving her without any pressure or interference.

    If the President is such a good person then why is he still keeping Deziani Allison-Madueke as Minister of Petroleum with alleged cases of monumental corruption going on in that industry especially within the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). We’ve heard about 20 billion USD oil money reportedly missing for which the suspended CBN Governor was apparently being punished. Forget about the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria report on Sanusi’s CBN, it was just a convenient excuse to ease out a pain in the arse. Why wait till now to act on the council’s report that had been ready since March.

    This is not excusing Sanusi from accounting for his tenure as CBN Governor. If he had done anything wrong, particularly fraudulent, he should be punished. I am not one of his fans, but why punish him now after blowing the whistle on the missing oil money? And why not all those people involved in the missing money as well?

    The fraud in the oil industry dates back to the discovery of oil in Nigeria and has seemingly defied all actions taken by successive administrations to curb it. Most if not all of Jonathan’s predecessors are guilty, but then none of them has been described as nice the way Jonathan is being portrayed. So, if he is a nice and good person, then he should get rid of those bad people in our oil industry; he should start from his cabinet.

    If Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the coordinating Minister for the Economy as well as Finance Minister (whatever that meant) is sitting there comfortably with all these fraud allegations flying around, then I am afraid, she too had joined them. May be she is one of those bad people surrounding our ‘nice’ President.

    There are still many of them like that parading the corridors of power in Abuja. But like I asked earlier, why should a good person surround himself with bad people? The answer is simple, he too must be bad because like minds work together.

    Today we speak well of the likes of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and Alhaji Ahmadu Bello even after they are no more because of the good things they did when they were in power or had access to power. They didn’t achieve all those good things alone, they were helped by the good people they invited into their government. So, if Jonathan cannot attract or invite good people into his government, then he himself is bad. Shikena.

    One last thing to add. We’ve heard so much about how good and nice President Jonathan is, but people are not coming out to talk about his unforgiving spirit. I heard he doesn’t forgive. If you are in doubt ask former Bayelsa Governor Timi Silva or his namesake Timi Alaibe the former NDDC boss. Both are from Bayelsa State like President Jonathan. What a nice man!

     

     

  • Desperate president, haughty prince

    Desperate president, haughty prince

    He had it coming.” “It serves him right.” “About time.” “De man too do, sef”

    The subject of these sentiments and many more of like vintage, expressed again and again across media platforms, is of course Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, who was sent packing from the gubernatorial suite at the Central Bank of Nigeria last week by President Goodluck Jonathan.

    Sanusi had planned to leave that powerful office on his own terms. In the manner of royals used to determining when they come and when they go and how long they stay, he had served notice that he would not seek an extension of the statutory term of five years. He might well have thought that, by that singular stroke, he had at once positioned himself to assert the autonomy that goes with the position and insured himself against the abject groveling and the shabby compromises that public officials often have to make to hold on to their jobs.

    He did not grovel. But he carried on in the manner of someone who could not be touched, said his numerous critics. He was all too ready to express an opinion on every subject under the sun and even beyond. He talked far more than he listened. It was as if he was conducting a crusade against the Establishment of which he was a part.

    He turned a purely technocratic job into a political forum and invested it with power and authority that went far beyond what its creators envisaged. He reveled in controversy. He dispensed public funds as if he was stricken with the Mansa Musa syndrome. Sometimes, it was as if he saw the CBN and its sprawling bureaucracy as an extension of the Kano emirate court.

    All in all, his numerous admirers countered, he has been a breath of fresh air in the mouldy corridors of high finance. He called attention to issues the authorities would rather conceal, such as the extortionate salaries and allowances legislators appropriated unto themselves under the table, and the opacity of the reporting system on oil export earnings. He spent public money judiciously, for beneficent ends.

    Above all, his numerous admirers said, he had rescued the banking sector from the grip of a powerful mafia that had since the time of military president Ibrahim Babangida turned the industry into an organised racket.

    Sanusi had three months left on his term. To Abuja which had been chafing under his strictures, three months seemed like an eternity. If he could not be removed, surely he could be neutralised and kept so busy fighting for his name and honour that asking inconvenient questions would be the last thing of his mind?

    So, they got the Department of Dirty Tricks to work up to the most intrusive and titillating detail an alleged dalliance between Sanusi and a female executive at CBN they said he had employed without following the rules. From intercepted text messages the twain were alleged to have exchanged, you could almost hear the moan of ecstasy and the joy of conquest.

    The Department of Dirty Tricks blanketed the media with these salacious reports, hoping that the public would rise in indignation, declare any public official involved in such conduct guilty of “moral turpitude” and unfit to hold high public office.

    There were indeed those who reacted in exactly that manner. Some even went one better, demanding that Sanusi be hauled before the nearest Sharia court, tried summarily and sentenced to public flogging or lapidation.

    But by and large, the stories gained no traction in the media or in public discourse

    So, the authorities fell back on the bureaucratic expedients of audits and queries. That didn’t work either. With his accustomed hauteur, Sanusi disputed the competence and authority of the sources of the queries that did reach him and refused to respond. Nor would he resign as President Jonathan requested.

    He says he heard of but was never served with the documents released after his ouster charging him with reckless and incompetent management of public funds and hinting darkly at big-time sleaze.

    That is hardly surprising. Abuja had had more than enough. It was time to unsheathe the sword of presidential power; time for the formerly shoeless boy from the creeks to teach the haughty prince from Kano who has never lacked for anything a lesson in realpolitik he seems to have forgotten: Power will always find a way.

    Didn’t Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sardauna Sokoto, and premier of Northern Nigeria depose and banish to Azare, in what was then Bauchi Province, the now former CBN governor’s iconoclastic uncle, Muhammadu Sanusi, who served as Emir of Kano between 1954 and 1963? Did the heavens fall?

    So who or what can stand in the way of a President vested with the powers of a leviathan in his resolve to dismiss an official he can no longer work with? The Constitution only says the official cannot be dismissed without the consent and approval of the Senate. It does not say that you require any such approval to suspend him.

    So, go at him, and do so with petulant vindictiveness. Humiliate him on the world stage; suspend him from office while he is conducting business in Niamey, in Niger Republic, on the nation’s behalf.

    Such shabbiness harks back to what military president Babangida did to Prince Tony Momoh.

    For weeks, rumours of a cabinet shuffle had been swirling, and Momoh, the regime’s Minister of Information, was one of those being mentioned as likely casualties. So, before setting out at the head of a delegation to represent Nigeria at ceremonies marking the end of slavery in the Caribbean nation of Guyana, Momoh had gone to Babangida to ask whether he should proceed, in view of rumours that he was going to be dropped in the impending cabinet shuffle.

    “You believe that?” Babangida remonstrated. “Common, Tony. How can we drop our resident philosopher from the Federal Executive Council?’’

    Whereupon he wished Momoh a pleasant trip.

    Momoh’s plane was streaking across the Atlantic when Dodan Barracks announced that he had been dropped from the Federal Executive Council. By the time the plane touched down, he had been stripped of all authority to transact any business on behalf of the Federal Government.

    Sanusi’s media acolytes and retainers unwittingly contributed to his present grief when they dared Dr Jonathan to dismiss him and face dire consequences. Their taunts did little to restrain Dr Jonathan and may well have emboldened him.

    For now, Sanusi is gone. But the issues he raised will not go away until they are addressed forthrightly. Of these, none is more urgent than an answer to the insistent question: What happened to $20 billion in oil receipts?

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • I can suspend CBN Governor – Jonathan

    I can suspend CBN Governor – Jonathan

    President Goodluck Jonathan has insisted that he has the powers to suspend the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.
    Responding to questions during the Presidential Media Chat on Monday, Jonathan said ” I will tell you yes. The President has absolute powere to suspend the CBN Governor. ”
    “The CBN is not even well defined in the Nigerian Constitution. If you look at the Nigerian Constitution, Section 153 talks about executive bodies like Federal Character Commission, Civil Service Commission, Independent National Electoral Commission, the Judicial Service Commission about 14 of them. These are clearly defined. The President appoints, but the Senate must clear, for the president to remove anybody he must go through the Senate.
    ” CBN as the number one bank is not even well defined in the Nigerian Constitution, but the CBN law makes provision that to appoint the governor and deputy governors of CBN and executive directors, president appoints and send to the Senate. But the President has oversight over the CBN, so if anybody tells you that the CBN is a different country, it is not true because for the CBN to change the Colour of the Naira, the President must approve,” Jonathan stated.

  • Share prices crash as investors dump equities

    Share prices crash as investors dump equities

    Equities slumped to their lowest prices at the weekend in a two-day losing streak that highlighted investors’ fears about the possible negative spillovers from the Thursday’s suspension of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, by President Goodluck Jonathan.

    Market considerations of most equities at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) crashed to their low on Friday. The two-day loss that started on Thursday wiped off earlier sustained gains between Monday and Wednesday and left the market with a negative week-on-week loss of 1.22 per cent, about N126 billion. The decline at the weekend brought equities to a three-month low, traced back to November 20, 2013.

    From the banking to manufacturing to downstream oil sectors, most leading equities slipped to their lowest prices this year at the weekend. Most banking stocks fell to their lowest market considerations. In spite of the announcement of its group managing director, Mr Godwin Emefiele, as the new CBN governor designate, Zenith Bank’s share price slipped to a low of N19.90 per share. Guaranty Trust Bank, the most capitalised banking stock, also declined to a low of N23.67 per share. FBN Holdings closed at a low of N11.99 while UBA slumped to N6.70.

    Share prices of multinationals, which usually feature largely in portfolios of foreign investors, highlighted the panic among foreign portfolio investors. Guinness Nigeria, Flour Mills of Nigeria, Nestle Nigeria, Unilever Nigeria and Lafarge Cement Wapco Nigeria hit the bottom at N168.90, N82.50, N1,100, N48 and N105.1 respectively.

    Other stocks that stooped to year-to-date low included Okomu Oil Palm, N38.40; UAC of Nigeria, N67.01; Dangote Sugar Refinery, N10.74; Honeywell Flour Mills, N3.50; Vitafoam Nigeria, N4.10; Access Bank, N7.91; Diamond Bank, N6.10; Wema Bank, 95 kobo; Mansard Insurance, N2.19; FCMB Group, N3.30; Evans Medical, N2.57; Ashaka Cement, N17.96 and MRS Oil and Gas, which closed at a year-to-date low of N54.44 per share.

    Besides, several stocks closed at the day’s lowest price, underlining the fears that the downtrend may persist in the days ahead. These included Dangote Cement, Julius Berger Nigeria, PZ Cussons Nigeria, Fidelity Bank, Skye Bank, Forte Oil, Conoil, Mobil Oil Nigeria, Total Nigeria, University Press and Nigeria Aviation Handling Company (Nahco).

    Some stocks however indicated possible rebound. Nigerian Breweries bounced back from the day’s low of N142.60 to close at N145 while Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI) also recovered from the day’s low of N13.11 to close at N13.80.

    Between Thursday and Friday, investors lost N354 billion as sell pressures overwhelmed market’s demand capacity. Investors lost N167 billion at the weekend, in addition to N187 billion loss that greeted the news of the suspension on Thursday. Aggregate market value of all quoted equities dropped to a low of N12.301 trillion at the weekend as against its week’s opening value of N12.427 trillion. The benchmark index at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE)-the All Share Index (ASI), indicated a daily average decline of 1.34 per cent at the weekend, bringing the decline since Thursday to 2.81 per cent. The ASI, which tracks the values of all quoted companies on the NSE and as such serves as country index for Nigeria, had declined by 1.47 per cent on Thursday. The ASI closed weekend at a low index point of 38,295.74 points as against its week’s opening index of 38,397.09 points.

    Prior to the suspension on Thursday, equities had built up strong bullish rally. Aggregate market value of all equities at the NSE had witnessed sustained rally between Monday and Wednesday. It opened the week at N12.427 trillion and built up successively to N12.528 trillion, N12.530 trillion and N12.655 trillion on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday respectively. The ASI had also sustained steady rally prior to the reversal on Thursday. ASI opened at 38,767.29 points and built up to 38,964.75 points, 38,972.56 points and 39,397.09 points within the first three trading days.

  • Jonathan’s impunity

    Jonathan’s impunity

    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.