A former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mallam Nasir\u00a0el-Rufai, may have hit it big with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), as\u00a0his quantitysurveying firm has landed a multi billion-naira contract with\u00a0the apex bank.<\/p>\n
El-Rufai joined critics of the Federal Government shortly after he left\u00a0the economic team of Ex President Olusegun Obasanjo and his exit as FCT\u00a0minister.<\/p>\n
Sources hinted that the CBN which has disbursed over N163 Billion so far\u00a0under the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) sub head, has concluded bplans to build another events center in Garki Abuja for a whooping sum of\u00a0N84 Billion.<\/p>\n
El-Rufai and Partners Limited, design cost associates based in Aminu Kano\u00a0Crescent, Wuse 2, Abuja landed the design contract for the center.\u00a0The professional fee for the firm, Pointblanknews.com stands at 6 per cent\u00a0is about N5 Billion. Besides there is no evidence that due process was\u00a0followed by the CBN in the award. The total cost is a little over N94\u00a0Billion with about N10 Billion going into professional fees for surveyors,\u00a0architects.\u00a0Sources told Pointblanknews.com that the CBN Governor has been\u00a0capitalizing on the liberal nature of the President to award contracts to\u00a0his friends and cronies.<\/p>\n
Said a source, \u201ccan you imagine Sanusi awarding contracts to his friends\u00a0under a General Sani Abacha or even President Musa Yar\u2019Adua? This is only\u00a0happening simply because President Goodluck Jonathan is very liberal\u00a0minded, he simply allows people to get away with a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wikipedia captures El-Rufai and partners thus: Nasir established a\u00a0Quantity Surveying and Project Management Consulting firm in 1982 with\u00a0three other partners. The firm was quite successful, handling mainly\u00a0building and civil engineering projects in Nigeria, and made the partners\u00a0wealthy millionaires while still in their twenties<\/p>\n
The center, which will be where the old NITEL building was, would have\u00a0malls, business centers, and sundry commercial and recreational concerns.\u00a0A South African firm demolished the old NITEL building.\u00a0The Central Bank of Nigeria had in 2012 awarded a N9.5 Billion contract\u00a0for the construction of a Conference Centre at the University of Jos\u2019
\npermanent site.<\/p>\n
There also indications that this firm got a large slice of the N64 Billion\u00a0FCT city gate project that would have pedestrian bridges; the Northern\u00a0axis would have conference rooms, parade ground, botanical garden, five\u00a0star hotel and hospital among others.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, there had been a link between CBN Governor, Lamido Sanusi\u00a0and E-Rufai. Aside from the fact that the body language and rhetoric of\u00a0both men have not been anything complementary, they may soon be in-laws.<\/p>\n
It was gathered that kid sister of El-Rufai may soon be Mrs Lamido Sanusi\u00a0as preparations are on for the Nikai which comes up soon in Daudawa,\u00a0Faskari Local Government area of Katsina state .<\/p>\n
Within two years, Sanusi whose donations is well above $1 Billion, has\u00a0doled out N15 billion to only four educational institutions, and the\u00a0figure could even be more. The latest is the N10 billion donated to Uthman\u00a0Danfodio University, UDU, Sokoto, through Kabiru Nuhu, deputy director,\u00a0Projects, Planning and Implementation Division, Procurement and Support\u00a0Services Department, of CBN. According to Nuhu, the intervention, which\u00a0was part of CBN\u2019s corporate social responsibility, CSR, for 2013, was\u00a0aimed at building capacity, manpower and infrastructure in the university,\u00a0with a view to making the Nigerian economy at par with top economies in\u00a0the world.<\/p>\n
Pat Utomi, a professor of Economics, had similarly described the donations\u00a0as absurd and arbitrary. Said he: \u201cThere is no logic in what he is doing.\u00a0It just shows there is no control even from the system. I am aware that he\u00a0is probably gunning for the Emirate of Kano, and wants to give the Bayero s\u00a0a run for their money, but should that be at the expense of Nigerians and\u00a0their money?\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, Femi Gbajabiamila, minority leader, House of Representatives,\u00a0wondered whether the CBN had become a donor agency or a charity\u00a0organisation.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, the executive and the legislative arms of government are\u00a0worried by the donations by CBN. For instance, the exercise reportedly\u00a0earned Sanusi a query from President Goodluck Jonathan in April.<\/p>\n
Although the bank denied getting any query from the Presidency, Reuben\u00a0Abati, presidential spokesman, was quoted by The Punch newspaper then as\u00a0saying that the President, indeed, wrote the CBN governor asking him to\u00a0explain certain things regarding the accounts of the bank, to which Sanusi\u00a0responded immediately. What was said in the reply was not certain, but the\u00a0Presidency might have been convinced that the CBN could not have gone\u00a0beyond bound. However, if the apex bank cannot be questioned on how it
\ndoes its CSR, how proper is it that one institution gets N10 billion in an\u00a0economy as Nigeria\u2019s, while others get interventions in millions of naira?<\/p>\n
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A former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mallam Nasir\u00a0el-Rufai, may have hit it big with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), as\u00a0his quantitysurveying firm has landed a multi…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n