By; MUSA ILALLAH
Recent negative comments by the suspended Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and deposed 14th Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi (SLS) on the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari did not come to most Nigerians as a big surprise.
SLS’s grouse with Buhari is that despite his lobbying for his reinstatement as CBN governor, he refused the entreaties to return Sanusi as the apex bank’s governor. That is Buhari’s crime in the heart of SLS.
Sanusi, as social critic has a long history of undoubtedly possessing antecedents of rubbishing anything that he hasn’t been opportune to add his voice into.
I think it will make more sense if we recall that a few weeks ago, Sanusi, a former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, openly declared: “it would be unfair to blame President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for the current bad shape of the economy”.
Sanusi, an economist, did not hesitate to put the blame at the door steps of the immediate past administration of President Muhammadu Buhari for the woes; claiming that “the Buhari administration left the country’s economy in a deplorable condition”.
In his several opinion articles published by some Nigerian newspapers in the past, Sanusi’s writings have raised some concerns that most were described as not only controversial but and also inciting. This he did in the years before his appointment as CBN governor. Criticisms, infact and without justifiable reasons have become a stock in trade for him.
In 2013, then CBN Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi was investigated. The investigator found that Sanusi abused his powers and committed atrocities as contained in a 50-page report submitted to President Jonathan.
Luckily for him and before President Jonathan acted, Sanusi had become an Emir under very mysterious and questionable circumstances, which conferred him an unofficial and unconstitutional immunity.
That report is still lying in the Presidency’s shelf and may be it will be considered by President Tinubu. One wonders why President Buhari did not consider it strategic enough to attend to it.
In spite of all the mess he had put CBN into, Sanusi still continued to parade himself as a preacher of righteousness and an economist of repute.
Regrerably, the rot Sanusi left in the CBN had set a precedent of alleged malfeasance. CBN governor Emefiele only built on it and moved it up the ladder. The CBN became government’s ATM
Incidentally, the man who investigated Sanusi, Obaze found that he committed atrocities. He is the same man that has been investigating Emefiele.
The possibility is that one day Obaze or another patriotic Nigerian may revisit Sanusi Lamido’s running of the CBN and particularly the report submitted to President Jonathan by Obaze.
The simple truth is that like current emir of Kano, Aminu Ado Bayero, said, “There is hunger and starvation in the land”. Which were largely brought about by the removal of petroleum subsidy by the Tinubu administration that SLS has till date vigorously pursued and defends day and night.
Though the current situation brought about by withdrawal of fuel subsidy didn’t start with this government, the situation has now become more alarming and needs urgent attention and intervention by well meaning Nigerians.
Nevertheless, what appeals to be a defence of the Tinubu government in Sanusi’s utterances has brought to memory what the former CBN governor personifies.
In March 2020, SLS was deposed from his ancestral throne as the 14th Emir of Kano on the basis of being accused of insubordination to the then Kano State, Dr Abdullahi Ganduje.
With his long record as a critic of fiscal and monetary policies perceived to be anti-people, analysts are wondering why he chose to align with President Tinubu amid the harsh economic reality in the country.
People begin to wonder why he hasn’t seen anything wrong with the Tinubu administration and therefore, wonder why he chose to toe the lone path of supporting removal of fuel subsidy that has brought so much untold hardship to all Nigerians.
MUSA ILALLAH writes from
Emeka Anyaoku Street, Abuja and can be reached via; musahk123@yahoo.com
