likely sins of Lamido Sanusi

Financial atrocities
The financial atrocities in the CBN under
Sanusi are simply outrageous. If this is how
government agencies steal and mismanage
public funds, then Nigeria is in more trouble
than we have ever imagined. CBN accounts
under Sanusi read like pure fiction. While
crying foul about missing money in NNPC,
Sanusi failed to account for missing monies in
CBN. Investigating the CBN in April 2013, the
Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRC)
discovered that ₦38.23 billion was missing.
The money was said to have been paid to
MINT- a subsidiary of the CBN. However,
MINT accounts showed no such money was
received.
It is only in Nigeria that you can have a
Central Bank governor spend government
money anyhow at his own discretion. Sanusi did
not just spend a few thousand naira
whimsically. He did not just give away millions
of naira like Aliko Dagote. He gave away
billions. The government reveals that Sanusi
gave away nothing less than ₦163 billion in no
less than 63 “intervention projects” in
different parts of the country. Remember
this: that is more than the entire 2014 budget
of Edo State.
Just listen to this: the CBN is said to have
paid ₦38 billion to the Nigerian Security
Printing and Minting Company (NSPMC) in
2011 for printing banknotes. However this is in
excess of the total turnover of NSPMC that
same year, which was only ₦29 billion. The CBN
claims to have paid Emirate Airline ₦511
million for currency distribution nationwide in
2011 when the airline does not have a local
charter service in Nigeria. It reports ₦425
million as paid to Wing Airline, but the airline
is not even registered in Nigeria. It also claims
to have paid Associated Airline ₦1 billion for
the same purpose, but the airline did not have
up to a billion-naira turnover in 2011.
In its 2011 account under “sundries” (i.e.
unexplained expenses), Sanusi’s CBN reported
an expenditure of ₦1.1 billion. For legal and
professional fees that same year, it claimed to
have spent an amazing ₦20 billion. This is
simply mind-boggling. So mind-boggling in fact
that naïve people like me don’t believe a word
of it. These are just crooked details designed
to mask the massive corruption and graft
under Sanusi’s watch.
In 2012, ₦1.2 billion was listed as expenses on
“private guards” and “lunch for policemen.”
Wow! These policemen must have been having
caviar for lunch. Similarly, ₦1.6 billion was
spent on newspapers, books and periodicals
alone that same year. Pull another leg. Who
believes this kind of rigmarole?
Still in 2012, ₦3 billion was spent on
“promotional activities.” Pray, to whom was the
CBN doing this promoting? Where did these
promotional activities take place and to what
purpose? Was it in Nigeria or in outer space?
Which bank was CBN in competition with? Was
it the World Bank or the African Development
Bank? Was the CBN trying to attract
depositors or customers? Or was it paying
legislators so that its powers would not be
curtailed?
Nobody should condone Sanusi’s financial
recklessness. He also played Father Christmas
with Nigeria’s money. According to the
government, Sanusi’s CBN wrote-off loans to
the tune of ₦40 billion. Without board or
presidential approval, Sanusi spent ₦743
million of CBN money acquiring 7% shares of
the International Islamic Management
Corporation of Malaysia, contrary to the
provisions of the CBN Act.
Off to Kirikiri
It is a big indictment of the Jonathan
administration that this impunity was
tolerated for this long and was only addressed
after Sanusi became a political
embarrassment to the government. The billion-
naira question now is what is going to happen to
Sanusi. Will he get away with these corrupt
practices or will he be prosecuted to the full
extent of the law? My position is that we need
to chart a new course in the treatment of
corruption in Nigeria. If Sanusi is truly guilty
of these improprieties, he should be sent to
jail; for a very long time.
However, the bet is on that nothing will happen
to him beyond his dismissal from office. It
appears nothing is also going to happen to
Deziani Allison-Madueke, the Minister of
Petroleum. The missing $20 billion at NNPC
will also be swept under the carpet. All the
signs of a cover-up are already apparent. The
FRC indicted all the Deputy Governors of the
CBN along with the Governor and asked that
they all be sacked. However, not only were
they not sacked, one of them has been made
the new Acting Governor. In all likelihood, this
culture of impunity will remain for the simple
reason that it seems to go all the way to the
very highest echelons of the Nigerian
government.