SUSPENDED Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, made an earth-shaking disclosure about the $20 billion he accused the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) of not remitting to the federation account.
In his ongoing campaign to tarnish the Jonathan administration using the international media, Sanusi told the New York Times that the money was actually shared by a powerful cabal ahead of next year’s all-important general elections. Regardless of his somersaults on the ‘missing’ money – from the initial $49.8b, to $10.8b and finally $20b – he created the impression that the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) administration had its hands soiled in the nation’s cookie jar.
A section of the international media seems to believe him, hence the publications. In addition to the New York Times, The Independent of London has run a similar story along the same lines of argument, while a few of the local print media have already culled and published the reports. No doubt, the Sanusi image laundering machinery has cranked into life, but what results has it achieved? Rather than achieve the result he desires, the disclosure now raises questions about the other cabal, the political party, whose members have benefitted most from his gratuitous donations.
Top on this list are members of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) and their legacy components, especially the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), led by Major General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd). As far as the diversions of large sums of money from the CBN coffers went in the name of donations, is the cabal that benefitted not in the APC?
Early this year, the Presidency had issued a query to the CBN governor demanding an explanation for the money he was doling out in the name of “donations.” It was clear the Presidency was unsettled over reports that the bulk of the billions Sanusi was alleged to have ‘donated’ –about N150 billion by conservative estimates – purportedly ended up with some top members of the opposition APC or some interest groups in states controlled by the party. It was one of the aspects of his long list of official misdemeanors, although the serial infractions of regulations governing the operations of the CBN ultimately led to his suspension from the post he so much coveted.
The CBN governor was accused of making a direct donation of about N1 billion to the APC, an accusation he has failed to clear. When added to the list of curious and questionable donations of N4 billion to Bayero University in his native Kano state, the N10 billion donation to Uthman Dan Fodio University, Sokoto and the N100 million donation to the Kano State Government, a clearer picture of the man’s indiscretion, partisanship and inclination towards ethnic and sectional interests would appear.
There is ample proof that Sanusi was funding the opposition cabal through curious donations or by award of “heavy contracts.” He is believed to be one of the biggest financiers of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), and its presidential candidate, Major- General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd). It was through him that the love was transferred to the APC, Buhari’s present party which has so far received elaborate funds from the suspended Emperor of the Nigeria’s financial institutions. Though he was once invited to the Villa to explain the donation of N20 million to Buhari’s presidential campaign which he reportedly admitted, the actual sum according to reports, is suspected to be more than N100 million.
Sanusi is also reported to have awarded a diminutive former minister and leading opposition figure in the APC, contracts in the region of N5 billion for architectural and project design of the apex bank’s event centre in Abuja. The thinking in circles in Abuja is that it was made to assist the newly formed party gain a stronger foothold, especially in the North. Another set of contracts worth over N15 billion is said to have been awarded to a former governor who is said to have recommended Sanusi for appointment as CBN governor.
The question is, why should a sitting CBN governor make financial donations to an opposition political party, and providing sensitive documents to them, in order to discredit the ruling party? Security reports indicated that Sanusi was in the habit of hobnobbing with opposition politicians and making statements capable of undermining the integrity of the nation’s financial institutions. A presidency official was quoted by reports, as saying “the CBN governor has become more of a politician than a banker…. He delights in political circus shows in the company of opposition political figures.”
It was obvious that Sanusi’s actions were largely dictated by his desire to gratify the APC, his adopted political party, and to discredit the PDP which administration he is supposed to be working for. It was this consideration that led him to allegedly leak the letter he wrote to the President on ‘the unremitted $49.8 billion” to former President Olusegun Obasanjo. It was also the same disloyalty that led to his insistence that President Jonathan could not remove him, saying only the Senate could remove him from office by a two-thirds (majority) vote.
The allegation over missing funds was simply his contribution to the larger plan by the opposition to discredit the government ahead of the 2015 general election. It was designed to cripple the government morally, and make it difficult for the PDP to challenge strongly at the next election. No such high-ranking official has so brazenly defied his employers and attacked its integrity while openly romancing the opposition.
Sanusi’s statement that government moved against him for threatening to open the books of the banks to trace the movement of the missing money, is a clever way to draw the wool over the public’s eye. For a man who is supposed to be the chief economic adviser of the federal government, the suspended CBN Governor recounts his actions as if he were a total outsider. It is deceptive for a man who is easily the most powerful government official in Nigeria; a man who spent billions without appropriation and who refused to account to any known authority in the land, projected himself as a whistleblower who was and is being victimized for, as it were, seeking rectitude in the nation’s accounting procedures. Nothing can be more deceptive.
Now that his alibi has been busted through the government’s suspension, Sanusi should boldly own up to the accusation that he used his office to prepare grounds for his future political interests.
HAMISU ABUBAKAR a public affairs analyst, wrote from Abuja.
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