The crucifixion of truth

With Sanusi’s sack through the back door by President Jonathan, like Justice Salami’s, who is next?

Do not get carried away by the title of this piece. Nothing in it suggests that the immediate past governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, who was suspended (actually sacked) by President Goodluck Jonathan on Wednesday, is a saint. In Nigeria, who is a saint?

A statement signed by Reuben Abati, the president’s spokesman, said inter alia: “ Having taken special notice of reports of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria and other investigating bodies, which indicate clearly that Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi ‘s tenure has been characterised by various acts of financial recklessness and misconduct which are inconsistent with the administration’s vision of a Central Bank propelled by the core values of focused economic management, prudence, transparency and financial discipline …” the Federal Government had no choice but to suspend the CBN governor.

One thing that is not funny about the so-called suspension is that it is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. The Jonathan administration is deficient in all the qualities it has outlined as constituting Mallam Sanusi’s sins. Which financial recklessness is greater than the one in which our foreign reserves and even the excess crude account are being depleted voraciously without any tangible thing to explain the depletion? And this in spite of the fact that crude prices have been soaring far beyond budgetary projections! If the government is talking of core values, what constitutes its own core values? Does transparency exist in the government’s lexicon?

As a matter of fact, this is the main reason why Mallam Sanusi incurred the wrath of President Jonathan. The CBN boss, had raised certain fundamental issues about the way billions of dollars are missing from the government’s coffers and, instead of the government thanking him (even if that is not his duty), he was asked to resign. As someone who knows his right, he refused. It was clear at that point that the President would take his pound of flesh.

A predictable President Jonathan did last Wednesday. But we need to be worried, especially when dangerous precedents become a predictable pattern. I must confess that some of us heard something akin to what eventually happened to the CBN governor more than three weeks ago. What was in the air then was that the CBN governor would just get to his office and be barred from going in by security agents, and without any explanation, perhaps beyond the usual ‘order from above’. May be those who were to hatch the plot figured that might not go without incidents and so decided to wait for a more auspicious time. That came Wednesday when the former governor was in Niamey to attend the conference of the West African Currency Zone with other governors of the Central Banks in West Africa. Sanusi was reported to have hurriedly left the venue of the meeting shortly after the Nigerian Ambassador to Niger confirmed to him the directive suspending him by the presidency.

When, the other time Justice Ayo Salami was the victim of presidential recklessness, we thought it was his (Salami’s) business. All we offered then was a feeble resistance. Even when the judiciary that took the matter to the President (apparently in error) said it had found nothing against the former President of the Court of Appeal and that he should be recalled from suspension, President Jonathan looked the other way and ensured that Justice Salami retired from his so-called suspension.

The danger in our docility or nonchalance on matters like these is that impunity will continue to beget impunity. It is already happening. This paper’s editorial on Mallam Sanusi’s sack on Friday took us down the memory lane when it said that Alhaji Shehu Shagari took time out to address the nation when, during his time, N2.8billion oil money was said to be missing. This was the result of the outrage in the entire country. These days, worse allegations of corruption involving billions of dollars are treated as if they are not unusual. Indeed, Nigerians are no longer shocked by public officials stealing in millions, the vogue now is to steal in billions since hell would not be let loose.

But these are too dangerous precedents that should not be encouraged in a democratic setting. The stark reality is that fascism is fast creeping in. President Jonathan does not need to tell us that he is neither Pharaoh nor Herod; his actions have spoken louder than his voice to give us an idea of his true personality. And the situation can only get worse with the 2015 elections getting closer because most things happening in the country, particularly on the political and economic plains, including the removal of Mallam Sanusi, are all about the 2015 elections. Nigerians who felt the 2011 elections gulped money would see that the next general elections would gulp even more. What was spent in 2011 would be chicken feed to what would be spent next year. And that money must come from somewhere. All kinds of books would be cooked because there won’t be any heading for such expenditure anywhere in the budget. We may start to feel the negative impact of such unearned income on the economy by the third or fourth quarter of the year. Now that Mallam Sanusi has been fired, the allegations may die naturally because not many people would want to suffer the same fate. In all these, Nigeria is the loser.

Be that as it may, by saying that he suspended Mallam Sanusi, President Jonathan has merely fooled Nigerians. He is only being clever by a quarter, not even by half. It is a slap on our faces because what has happened means that the President knows that he has no power to sack the CBN governor by virtue of section 11, subsection 2(f) of the CBN Act, without at least two-thirds of the Senate members concurring. Yet, he does not like his (Sanusi’s) face (or is it his guts?) and so decided to throw him out with impunity. If all he did was suspend the former CBN governor, why the unholy haste in announcing an acting CBN governor only to follow it up with the nomination of his replacement?

This kind of decisiveness in not vintage President Jonathan, except when the matter concerns people whose faces he does not like. We know how long it took us to get him remove his former Minister of Aviation, Ms Stella Oduah, despite the weighty allegations against her. The other, his petroleum minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, whose case is even worse than Oduah’s remains on the beat years after Nigerians have come to see her ministry as an epitome of corruption.

The truth of the matter is that whatever arbitrariness the CBN Act sought to prevent by insulating the apex bank’s governor from an overbearing executive would have been defeated if the bank boss can be suspended the way President Jonathan has done. People get away with these things because they are hardly challenged. It is on this score that I support Mallam Sanusi’s decision to challenge his suspension in court. Even a baby lawyer would know that if you lack the power to remove or sack, you cannot have the power to suspend in this situation, and especially in our kind of clime where government specialises in satanic subterfuge even as it lacks the capacity to deliver good governance. Obviously, the President too might be aware of this point but decided to go ahead with his plan in the hope that Mallam Sanusi would challenge him in court. Given the snail speed at which justice travels in the country, his (Sanusi’s) term would have elapsed by the time the case is decided. In which case, the President would still have had his way.

It is high time Nigerians rose against this reign of impunity. With two vital parts of our lives – the judiciary and now the CBN – being gradually subdued as it were, we may find it difficult to differentiate between good and bad, or morality and immorality, at the rate this government is perverting the system. Ideally, one would have hinged hope on the Senate but the Upper legislative house as presently constituted cannot be trusted to stop the rampaging government. Otherwise, the starting point would have been to ask it not to confirm the appointment of Zenith Bank boss, Godwin Emefiele as Mallam Sanusi’s successor. Whatever sins Mallam Sanusi might have committed, due process ought to be followed in addressing his case. We should not leave our fate in the hands of any overbearing executive. At the rate we are going under this government, truth would soon join the long list of essential but scarce commodities.