Showing posts with label Lamido Sanusi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lamido Sanusi. Show all posts

Thursday, March 12, 2020

Echoes From The Mad House: The Case Of Sanusi

Deposed Emir of Kano Muhammad Lamido Sanusi.

BY JOSEPHINE AKIOYAMEN

I don’t like Sanusi. I consider him spectacularly flippant. He was the one who made an accusation, based on no evidence but on his ipse dixit alone, that a humongous $20bn went missing under President Goodluck Jonathan’s watch. He was at the vanguard of the Fulani establishment with the desire to seize power from the feckless or shoe less fisherman from the creeks of the Niger Delta. Till date, he hasn’t been able to prove that assertion. The administration he helped installed quietly closed the books on that. He is a hatchet man.

I refused to be moved by his very many pandering to populism especially in the light of his fall out with the ascendant Fulani establishment he helped installed. He talks ,and that's about it. Anyone can talk but what is most important is leadership by example. Sanusi talks about the evil of child bribe in public. Whereas in private, he was involved in a dalliance with Sa’adatu Barkindo-Musdafa, daughter of the Lamido of Adamawa, Muhammadu Barkindo-Musdafa, when she was 16 and got married to her when she attained the age of 18. He talks about limiting the number of women, an adherent of Islam should be allowed to marry, so as to curb the almajiri phenomenon but yet again he refused to lead by example. He, himself, has an ever changing harem of four wives! How does he even live this hypocrisy down? He talks about the economy in platitudes. People mistake his locution in English as a sign of intellect. Everyone is capable of speaking that way if exposed to the kind of privileges Sanusi has had in his life.

He pretends to be a liberal Muslim but his records show otherwise. Sanusi earned a degree in Sharia and Islamic Studies from the International University in Khartoum, Sudan. It is known that when he came back to Nigeria he became a leader in Wahhabism, the ultra conservative branch of Sunni Islam and a movement among fundamentalists with an aspiration to return to the primordial fundamental Islamic sources; Quran, Hadeeth and Scholarly consensus (Ijma)) Islamic believers. Wahhabism was a popular revivalist movement instigated by an eighteenth century theologian, Muhammad ibn Abdal-Wahhab (1703–1792) from Najd, Saudi Arabia. His teachings came to a head in 1995 when he led a mob to behead an Igbo trader by the name Gideon Akaluka who had been arrested for desecrating the Quran. He was only saved from Abacha’s hangman’s noose by the intervention of former First Bank chairman, and father of Christmas Day bomber, Alhaji Umar Mutallab and others. Alhaji Muttallab then a heavy sponsor of Islamic activities prevailed on Abacha to spare Sanusi. Instead of the hangman’s noose he was removed from Kano to Sokoto where he was detained for two years. After his release from prison, it was also Alhaji Muttallab that got him a start in Banking. The rest is history.

He engages in the well worn Islamic principle of the taqqiyya to present a progressive facade to the public when in truth he is a fundamentalist to whom the life of the unbeliever do not matter. His teachings is the foundation upon which the wahhabist teachings of Boko Haram is founded on. Now I hear talk of presidency for him in 2023, I say Goodluck to y’all on that.

To me his dethronement is good riddance to bad rubbish.”

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Nigeria’s Central Bank Governor Won’t Seek Second Term

Reporters: Chris Kay and Maram Mazen, Abuja
Bloomberg News, March 20, 2013

Nigerian central bank Governor Lamido Sanusi, who rescued the banking industry from near-collapse four years ago, said he won’t renew his contract when it expires in 2014.
Sanusi, who has led the bank of Africa’s biggest oil producer since June 2009, said it was never his intention to stay longer than one term. He was speaking in an interview with CNBC Africa in Abuja, the capital.

Appointed in the midst of a debt crisis, Sanusi, 51, fired the chief executives of eight lenders within four months of taking office after an audit found evidence of mismanagement and reckless lending. He’s pushed for stability in the currency and helped bring inflation down below 10 percent, while at the same time antagonizing lawmakers by criticizing their spending and courting controversy for his outspoken views, most recently onChina’s role in Africa.

“That quality of character, that boldness is a quality that will be difficult to find amongst policy makers inNigeria,” Bismarck Rewane chief executive officer of Financial Derivatives Co., a Lagos-based business adviser, said by phone today.

Sanusi led the Monetary Policy Committee in increasing the benchmark interest rate by six percentage points to a record 12 percent from September 2010 to October 2011 to bolster the currency and curb inflation.

Bond Yields

The government should name his replacement soon to help ease investors’ concerns and manage the transition, said Samir Gadio, an emerging-markets strategist at Standard Bank Group Ltd. In 2009, former President Umaru Yar’Adua didn’t name Sanusi as a replacement to Chukwuma Soludo until two days before his term ended.

The naira fell 0.2 percent to 158.95 per dollar by 3:32 p.m. in Lagos, taking its decline this year to 1.8 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Yields on Nigeria’s $500 million of Eurobonds due January 2022 fell 10 basis points, or 0.1 percentage point, to 4.23 percent.

“He has a strong personality and a lot of people invested in the country just because of the personal relationship and the trust in Sanusi, and the confidence that Sanusi inspires,”Gadio said by phone from Lagos, the commercial capital.

Policy makers kept the interest rate on hold yesterday even as they face rising calls from businesses and the finance ministry to lower borrowing costs to spur investment. Sanusi told reporters in Abuja yesterday a rate cut “could send wrong signals of a premature termination of an appropriately tight monetary policy stance.”

Borrowing Costs

Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said in July record interest rates that pushed up commercial bank rates to about 20 percent were making it difficult for businesses to borrow.
Sanusi hasn’t shied away from controversy. In December 2010, lawmakers demanded Sanusi apologize for saying a quarter of the government’s spending on overheads went to parliament and that was damaging for the economy. He refused, saying his estimates were correct.

Last year lawmakers attempted to curtail the bank’s powers by proposing an amendment to the Central Bank of Nigeria Act that would strip Sanusi of his position as chairman of the bank’s board. They also pushed to include more external members on the board and have parliament approve the bank’s budget.

China’s Role

More recently, he criticized China’s role in Africa, saying it’s contributing to “deindustrialization and underdevelopment” in the world’s poorest continent. Africa must shake off its “romantic view of China” and see it as a competitor that’s “capable of the same forms of exploitation as the west,” Sanusi wrote in the London-based Financial Times on March 11.

The Chinese government said it was concerned and dissatisfied with the comments, Xinhua reported on March 14, citing Hua Chunying, spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry.
Sanusi was chief risk officer at United Bank of Africa Plc and First Bank of Nigeria Plc before becoming chief executive officer at FBN in January 2009. A grandson of the 11th Emir of Kano, Sanusi studied economics at the Ahmadu Bello University in the northern state of Zaria and Islamic law at the International University of Africa in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.

“The next governor will probably have a different outlook or perspective,” Yvonne Mhango, an economist at Renaissance Capital, said in a phone interview from Johannesburg today. “He came into office there was a banking crisis, the currency was depreciating and he had mid-teen inflation. He’s turned that all around.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Chris Kay in Abuja at ckay5@bloomberg.net; Maram Mazen in Abuja at mmazen@bloomberg.net

Sunday, February 03, 2013

I Earn N25,000 Daily Allowance - Sanusi


By Nse Anthony-Uko, Leadership Newspapers

Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Sanusi Lamido Sanusi has revealed that he earns N25, 000 per night as incidental allowance on his trips within the country.
He said this in response to the request by a Lagos based lawyer, Bamidele Aturu, for details of his remuneration and expenditures in accordance with the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2011. He however failed to disclose his allowances for foreign trips as well as his full remuneration as he insisted that they were as approved by the Presidency.
But in a swift reaction, Aturu said that he was not satisfied with the CBN Governor's replies, and insisted that he must reveal the full details of his earnings and allowances.
The lawyer noted that he planned to do a follow up on the request as it appeared that the CBN had misunderstood some of the questions.
Nonetheless, he commended the Governor for his response and said that it would encourage other public institutions to conduct their affairs transparently.
"We are impressed that the Governor is entitled to only N25, 000 as daily allowance when he travels within Nigeria. That is not excessive at all by Nigerian public officials' standards and given his lofty position. However, it is a little troubling that while the Bank was willing to state the local daily allowance it refused to state what the Governor earns when he travels outside the country.
Aturu, in a letter dated December 31, 2001 had requested that the CBN Governor provide information concerning recurrent expenditures for him and his office pursuant to Sections 1, 3 and 4 of the FOI Act 2011.
Sanusi who responded through the CBN Legal Adviser/Director, Legal Services Department S. M. Onekutu said that, "The Governor's remuneration is as stipulated by the Board and approved by Mr President in accordance with Section 8(3) of the CBN Act.
"Besides the governor's emolument and indeed the emolument structure of the CBN is benchmarked against the banking industry as approved in the federal government's white paper on the presidential committee on consolidation of emoluments in the Public Service.
"However, we are unable to release the details of the Governor's salary and allowances as that information is already a subject of litigation in Suit No. FHC/L/CS/1016/2011: Uzoegwu F. O. C Vs CBN & HAGF. The matter is on appeal and it will be prejudicial to comment on it."
Other requests bordered on allowances on foreign trips, whether the CBN owned aircraft, what classes of flight the governor travelled in when on official trips within and outside the country, how many cleaners, drivers are attached to the governor's office and residence as well as how much imprest he collects monthly among others.
Onekutu disclosed that the governor travels Business Class within the country and First Class outside Nigeria and added that Sanusi had occasionally used chartered planes to travel within and outside the country as dictated by exigencies.
On how many drivers are attached to Sanusi's office and home he said "the governor's official drivers are drawn from the pool of drivers in the Governor's Department, and are sourced from the pool of drivers in the Governor's Office Department on need basis. On number of cleaners, he said "the Bank (CBN), as a matter of policy does not employ cleaners, therefore, there are no cleaners attached to his office or home.
On monthly imprest he said "No monthly imprest is maintained by the Governor" Onekutu said and maintained that the Governor's entitlement for foreign trips is as approved by the Federal Government.
"We still expect the Governor to answer the question as he is in a position to know exactly what he earns and if he does not know he could have simply said so.
"We agree with the Bank that the time frame we gave, as required by law, was insufficient to calculate or sum up the amount spent on chartered flights within and outside Nigeria. To this end, we shall be doing a follow up and although we are required to give seven days, we promise the bank not to sue immediately until about 28 days after the follow up to give the bank added tome to add up the figures," Aturu stated.

Tuesday, January 08, 2013

FG, states, LGs shared N6.16tn in 2012 – Report



A whopping sum of N6.16tn was withdrawn from the Federation Account and shared among the three tiers of government in the 2012 financial year, investigations have revealed.

The figure is the total amount allocated under various distribution sub-heads, as approved by the legal framework upon which the account is being managed.

They are statutory allocation, which is shared in the following manner: Federal Government, 52.68 per cent; states, 26.72 per cent; and local governments 20.60 per cent; Value Added Tax (Federal Government, 15 per cent; states, 50 per cent; and LGs, 35 per cent); and extra allocation given to oil producing states based on the 13 per cent principle of derivation.

In addition, the amount is also made up of the monthly refund of the indebtedness of N7.6bn, which the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation owed the Federation Account.

The refund is only shared by the states and local government, as the Federal Government is excluded from the distribution since it has forfeited its part to the corporation.

The total figure, which was obtained by our correspondent from the Ministry of Finance, represented the monthly compilation of revenues allocated to the three tiers of government by the Federation Account Allocation Committee.

The committee is made up of the commissioners of Finance from the 36 states of the federation, and is headed by the Minister of State for Finance, Dr. Yerima Ngama.

Other members of the committee are the Accountant-General of the Federation and representatives of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Revenue Allocation and Fiscal Commission, Federal Inland Revenue Service, Nigeria Customs Service, and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.

Out of the N6.16tn, N614bn was shared in January; February, had the highest figure of distributed revenue with N620bn; N613.6bn was shared in March; April, N497.71bn; and May, N563.08bn.

Similarly, N461.76bn was approved for sharing in June; while N520.91bn was shared in July; August, N570.61bn; September, N566.51bn; October, N574.9bn; and November, N572.9bn.
The statutory revenue collected for the month of December has not been distributed as this month’s FAAC meeting has not been convened.

A further analysis of the statutory allocations given to each tier of government for the period showed that the Federal Government got N2.39tn; the 36 states of the federation shared N1.21tn; while N935.2bn was shared among the 774 local government areas.

When further broken down, the Federal Government got N173.4bn in January and N189.16bn, N231.63bn, N233.96bn and N296.63bn in February, March, April and May, respectively.

Similarly, it got N218.24bn in June; N217.77bn in July; August, N206.73bn; September, N211.74bn; October, N218.65bn; and November, N190.3bn.

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