Ukraine is in financial crisis and the country needs up to 35 billion dollars for the next few years to ease out their economic pain. In Nigeria, around 49, to 10 or 20 billion dollars gets missing! Yet, we are not on the world radar or map showing that we are in an economic struggle or melt down or downturn. That in itself is a measure of our economic prowess and endowment which has turned into a curse and undoing.
Our very own Nigerian Snowden, the indefatigable Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, former or suspended CBN governor, has blown all the whistles and for the first time in a serving government, a bold and brave official is able to come to the public square to declare that funds are missing or inappropriate and therefore our indices of growth and development remain inebriated.
Simply because they stand on the assumption and calculation that x or y billion dollars are saved in foreign accounts, as securities for the nation’s survival and credit ratings as well as business economic endeavours, the artistry of our able Finance Minister over the Obasanjo and Jonathanian years has propelled us vigorously towards saving and saving and saving into external reserves and excess crude accounts; even if at the detriment of our living conditions, the savings are meant for a rainy day.
If Sanusi can raise returns from the CBN to the federal government from a paltry $8 billion to a whopping $160 billion, I beg to say that he is a performer. If he is able to retrieve ill-gotten shareholders and depositors funds from rogue bank executives, in billions of dollars, then he is bound to have trucks of enemies and age old Goliaths after his head. Saying out Sanusi’s achievements in the CBN is like singing aloud an old nursery rhyme that half your neighbours all know the song so well that even their kids can sing along too!
International economic watch dogs, organisations, media, and so on, have commended Sanusi and he has bagged all kinds of awards, and is of international acclaim. If today, some financial reporting card from our own Finance Ministry or Auditor General’s office accuses Sanusi of impropriety, then Nigerians must be clear on what exactly he is accused of. A friend brought to our attention, the remarkable difference between recklessness and fraud. He reminded us that fraud means theft, while recklessness means wastage; not fraud. So is he accused of stealing? Or is his name being smeared with the word recklessness, courtesy of his whistle-blowing?
Sanusi is clearly up against the hoi polloi in Jonathan’s government and they have succeeded in separating the grains from the chaff in this administration. Sanusi has been edged out by a fierce ethnic battle laced with intense religious bigotry.Otherwise it beats anyone’s imagination that in spite of what the Kano prince has achieved in the CBN and with our inflation figures, he gets the boot, simply by pointing out that x billion dollars are missing from the national treasury.
This has opened up the vain debate of how NNPC has been running or managing petro-dollars arbitrarily, without remorse for the sake of the Nigerian masses, and without recourse to the National Assembly. The urgent need to boot Sanusi when he has just 3 months on his tenure further makes it more palpable, that a lot is amiss and perhaps there might be more than meets the eye (i.e.$20 billion).
The suggestion that he is funding government’s opposition is totally unfounded as far as we are concerned, unless, ofcourse, if government is able to do the Sanusi kind of forensics on his financial endeavours to substantiate their claims, just as he was able to establish a missing 10 billion dollars. If he gave El-Rufai, a friend of his, a contract, is it illegal? Even after due process? Does it mean El-Rufai, with all his credentials including the finest FCT Minister, cannot qualify for a job? Or is it just that he must not get a job once he is against government?
Besides, is it a sin or is it unconstitutional to be a critic of government? Must all contractors be PDP members? Must we live with all this kind of governmental recklessness? For sure, allegations against the former CBN boss and guru are too slippery and intangible, unless ofcourse his traducers can reveal more, or substantiate their claims.
As for Sanusi, what he has personified as a leader and public office holder is nothing short of an administrator par excellence. If he is guilty of anything at all, then he remains innocent until proven guilty, fairly or even not.
