Sanusi Lamido Sanusi: The outgoing Emir of CBN

These are heady days for the imperious traditional ruler of the Nigerian financial system, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, who for all intents and purposes can best be described as the Emir, rather than governor, of the Central Bank of Nigeria. The Kano-born prince, who has made it abundantly clear that his only ambition in life is to become the Emir of Kano, has been conducting himself in the most power-drunk manner ever seen in a CBN governor. And being the boastful person that he is, he will forever brag about how he took on the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, rubbished him in public while supposedly serving as part of his government, and nothing happened!

How did things come to this sorry pass? As every Nigerian with access to any media outlet knows, the Emir of the CBN wrote a letter to the President insinuating theft of $49.8bn from the sale of the nation’s crude oil. A while later ‘His Royal Highness’ admitted before the whole nation that he had lied in his letter. Thereafter, the CBN Emir who likes to ‘form’ (behave) like “oyinbo” (white or Englishman or woman), as we say in these parts, failed to do what a typical “oyinbo” will do when confronted with such a grave failing at his duty post; he failed to resign.

The overly gentle President Goodluck Jonathan—and every Nigerian knows that being too gentle is one of the President’s faults—reportedly asked the Emir of CBN to turn in his resignation letter and perhaps proceed to wait in Kano to achieve his life’s ambition. It was then that ‘His Royal Highness’ began quoting the Constitution (the same Constitution he has repeatedly violated by refusing to present CBN’s budget before the National Assembly), and talking two-thirds of the Senate, and a spurious claim of threat to his life. He even sent his media people to, in effect, gloat before Nigerians that, indeed, he is the Emir of CBN and cannot be removed from office.

As his ‘powerless’ subjects, Nigerians can only be grateful that the Emir of CBN does not have the same advantages of the Emir of Kano, whose throne he so sorely covets. Unlike the very dignified Emir of Kano, the Emir of CBN has a five-year tenure that will soon come to an end. ‘His Royal Highness’ has been telling whoever cares to listen that he does not want a second term at the helm of CBN. The more important question is: will any Nigerian, in his right senses, support a second term of office for this divisive, unrestrained, and attention-seeking Emir of CBN?

As a former director in the Presidency, Mr Eric Teniola, wrote in a recent public article, the person Nigeria needs as CBN governor should be “a cool-headed banker and an Economist who will not convert the office to a television studio.” This, undoubtedly, was a subtle but very clear barb at ‘His Royal Highness’, the outgoing Emir of CBN who indeed turned the office to a sitcom drama and brought the high office into disrepute during his tenure.

Besides the many allegations of immoral and gross misconduct levelled against the outgoing Emir of CBN, ‘His Royal Highness’ is on record as the most profligate CBN head the country has ever had. Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila (then representing Lagos State under the ACN), once described the CBN under Sanusi as “spendthrift” and “bleeding the economy of the country.”

Hon. Gbajabiamila did not make this description without basis. As his House of Representatives colleague, Hon. Goni Bukar Lawan (PDP/Yobe) said, “The moment I heard that the CBN governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, donated N100million to victims of Boko Haram attacks in Kano State, I quickly rushed to my constitution to see if Yobe State was no longer part of Nigeria. The bombings happened in Yobe, before Kano State. So, are we not part of Nigeria?”

And yet, in this divisive, insensitive, and indecorous manner, the outgoing Emir of CBN, hid under the corporate social responsibility of the institution, went around making more unprecedented donations as if the Central Bank of Nigeria had become a relief agency.

In addition, Hon. Gbajabiamila quoted section 42 of the 1999 Constitution and other relevant statutes in decrying Sanusi’s refusal to present CBN’s budget to the National Assembly for approval. Hon. Gbajabiamila said, “Even the Federal Government brings its budget for us to approve; so if Sanusi says he does not need to do that according to Section 162 of the 1999 Constitution, then he thinks the CBN is above the Federal Government.”

It is indeed amusing that the outgoing Emir of CBN can today be relying on the Constitution he does not respect to retain him for a few more months in an office he has told the world he no longer wants. One would have thought ‘His Royal Highness’ would have since left for Kano bag and baggage, in order to plot his emergence as the next Emir of Kano by all means foul and fair. What such unbridled ambition means for the current Emir of Kano is something only ‘His Royal Highness’, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the outgoing Emir of CBN, can tell the world.

In search of true democrats

No one can dispute the abysmal level of understanding of Nigerian politicians when it comes to the majesty of democracy. No one should be surprised, therefore, at their lack of sophistication in its practice. This realisation should, therefore, compel pity instead of condemnation over their current needless fight on the directive by the leadership of the opposition All Progressive Congress (APC) to its members in the National Assembly to block all executive bills beginning with the 2014 appropriation bill. All Nigerians can and should do is ask their leaders to grow up! 

For the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and its sympathisers, such a directive was ill-informed, self-serving and part of a grand design by a desperate opposition to capture power at all cost. More seriously, targeting such a directive at the 2014 appropriation bill was particularly seen as the height of political irresponsibility and insensitivity on the part of the APC to the plights of Nigerians who, as they argued, would be the primary victim of the order.

On the surface, this criticism of the APC’s directives would seem logical and understandable. The barrage afterall, affords the PDP an opportunity to accumulate cheap political capital, appearing as it does, to be on the side of the people. Nigerians should, however, thoroughly interrogate the sudden rejuvenation of the PDP as the champion of the popular interests of Nigerians. Close observers of the trend of governance under the PDP since 1999 will attest to the fact that the party has not been too people-friendly in its policy options and strategy. Given its antecedents, this sudden populism regarding the budget, seems more about the party’s share of the budget and not about Nigerians. After all, despite the annual increment in annual budget since 1999, and the rituals of its vetting by the National Assembly, the standard of living of an average Nigerian has hardly improved. It is bad enough that many of the criticisms fail to appreciate that an opposition party has the right to use its numerical strength to advantage in the legislature in all reasonable circumstances.

Worse still, the critics who claimed to be relying on the utilitarian philosophy of the greatest happiness for the people have pretended not to understand the context within which the APC gave the directive. For the avoidance of doubt, the APC predicated its directive upon the need to restore the rule of law in Rivers State, where for a long time, a commissioner of police, with the active connivance of the presidency, appeared to have ‘become the state’, in every sense of the expression, to the detriment of the people of the state. The level of impunity in that state has been outrageous, especially under a supposedly democratic government.

So, if only for the purpose of rescuing the government and governance of, and in Rivers State, the decision of the APC on this matter, for all intents and purposes, is not only compelling, but has been long overdue. It is like the only weapon in the hand of the ‘weak’ against the ‘strong’, a kind of the last resort to ensure some measure of balance of power against an imperial presidency, especially having exhausted all other available avenues for local remedy to no avail.

Moreover, filibustering, as it is known in principle, is a legitimate democratic tool for advancing democratic and party agenda in the legislature. The underlying assumption is that the people should be at the heart of governance and once a party has the requisite numerical strength in the legislative arm, it can force the executive arm run by another party to pursue the opposition party’s desired policies. Again, the people are central to it all. It is a tool that has been deployed on more than a few occasions in the United States, the latest being the government shutdown in 2013 over controversies regarding the health policy popularly called ‘Obamacare’. The reality in Nigeria may not necessarily be the same as the U.S., but the principles are not different. This is the beauty, the majesty of democracy.

Recent experiences at both regional and national levels have shown that in the absence of such institutional checks as the proposed blockage, people may resort to the adoption of unconventional means, especially street protests against an imperious or high-handed executive arm of government. It is, therefore, important to view what the APC did beyond partisan connotations. Rather, it should be seen as a bold and courageous step against a presumably dictatorial presidency. It was, above all else, a fight against impunity. The directive was, therefore, aimed at salvaging governance and rule of law in Rivers State in particular and Nigeria in general. For it will be too myopic and reductionist to interpret happenings in Rivers State strictly as the internal affairs of the state.

If, as the underlying principle of a dominant party in the legislative arm blocking executive excesses is to make that government behave responsibly, so be it.

This, however, is not to say that a supposed instrument of control such as this should be trivialised. While this development is welcome, the opposition needs to be careful in its deployment only in a way that will hold government accountable for its actions and inactions. If it must be deployed as a measure of last resort, as this instance suggests, it must be in the overall interest of the nation, never for partisan reasons. Only then can it generate sustainable sympathy from Nigerians and help advance the nation’s democracy and progress. 

Written by EDITOR -The Guardian Newspapers

2015 Elections: Northern elders as scare mongers

In African culture, elders are the custodians of truth.  They are the moral guide to the society and they do all in their wisdom to engender peace and preserve the interests of the larger society.  Unfortunately, the various elders’ groups in Nigeria–in the East, West, South-South, Middle Belt or North -are different; they observe this rule in the breach. The most typical of them is the Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF) which has been in the news in recent times, for its strident pursuit of sectional and parochial interests to the detriment of the well-being of the larger Nigerian nation.

The elders, at the end of its meeting in Kaduna last month, alleged that the immediate past Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Azubuike Ihejirika and some other top military officers were involved in extra-judicial killings and strangulation of civilians by soldiers in Bama and Giwa Barracks in Borno State, using an underground detention centre.  The Forum’s threat to drag the former Army chief to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, is not only seen as a campaign to fan the embers of ethnic discord –with its potentialities in Nigeria-it is also a campaign to diminish Nigeria before the international community. More grievous is that it is a malicious attempt to portray President Goodluck Jonathan as a violator of human rights.

At a different forum, the group and the Northern Traditional Rulers Council (NTRC) accused the President of masterminding the mass redeployment of heavy military weapons from the North to the South. As if the issue is not worrisome enough, their meeting chaired by no less a personality than the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa'ad Abubakar III, in Kaduna, alleged that the reason for the arms relocation was to aid the plan to rig the 2015 elections. Weighty accusations, I dare say. However, they are allegations that are as curious as they are baseless.

While the spokesman for the first group, Professor Ango Abdullahi, did not mention the six other persons he alleged were involved in the Borno human rights violations, the Sultan’s group did not in any way substantiate its allegation on arms relocation.  The questions that arise are many, but only two will suffice here: Why did they hide the allegations in their large babanrigas, until shortly after Ihejirika was removed as Army Chief?  And where were they when Odi, Katsina-Ala and Zaki Biam faced worse action, or are Katsina-Ala  and Zaki Biam no longer part of their North?

While several groups have denounced the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), for openly discouraging the military’s efforts in containing terror -- for that’s what its posture amounts to-prominent Igbo leaders say it is an attempt to tarnish the image and sterling performance of General Ihejirika as the nation’s army chief.  My worry is that the attack on the former army chief is ill-conceived, coming at a time that the military, and indeed the nation, was counting the losses in human and material terms of the war on Boko Haram.

According to Ihejirika himself, in the entire command chain of the Army, directives are issued from higher commands down to the issuance of operational orders, but at every level of adherence, the rule of engagement is emphasized with special emphasis on the preservation of human rights. Therefore, to accuse the army, such a highly organised institution that does not condone indiscipline, of human rights abuses within the Nigerian territory, is to be uncharitable, considering the challenges they have had to face and the risks they have borne in the Boko Haram ‘war’. Besides, to single out Ihejirika for accusation, smacks of hidden agenda, and fuels the belief by Ohaneze Youths, that it was an attempt to blemish the records of their kinsman who broke all records to rise to the top position of the Nigerian Army.

We have always known the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) as the modern version of the old Kaduna Mafia, but when did they transform to military tacticians?  Their tale on relocation of military hardware must therefore be seen as unnecessary scare-mongering.  To allege too that it was part of a grand design to rig the 2015 elections is utter claptrap coming from hawkish politicians out to score some cheap points.  NEF must appreciate the impact of the ongoing reforms in our electoral system, for which President Jonathan has received acclaim and commendation from local and international organizations. Such glib allegations are senseless in a country that has increasingly widened the democratic space and moved away from shambolic elections.

We must get something clear here.  The NEF stand on Ihejirika, has revealed the other side of the Northern Elders who have all paid lip service to the war on terror which Boko Haram presently symbolizes. Here we have politicians who mask under some amorphous groupings to further their regional agenda, regardless of the cost to our nation’s development.  While it is still within their democratic rights to oppose President Jonathan and oppose his administration’s policies, we must insist that they pursue their regional political agenda within the limits of decency.  What everybody must frown at is their insistence over time, in stoking the fire of sectional interests, and denigrating of the institution of the presidency.  The question must indeed be asked: where truly lies their sympathy?

Like Senator Uche Chukwumerije said while adding his voice in condemnation of the elders’ indiscretion, their statement has revealed the depth of resentment of the campaign against Boko Haram. Chukwumerije, who said the threat was capable of unleashing ill-will on the federation, further described it as highly provocative to the sensibilities of all, who desire the unity and stability of Nigeria.  While he described the NEF as biased, he believes they had opened doors into the world court for not only the Ndigbo, but also the people of Odi, Zaki-Biam and Katsina Ala, saying they would all dust their files and head for The Hague.  I cannot agree any less.

Constance Okechukwu sent in this piece