{"id":23642,"date":"2014-03-01T07:02:03","date_gmt":"2014-03-01T06:02:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/?p=23642"},"modified":"2014-03-01T07:02:30","modified_gmt":"2014-03-01T06:02:30","slug":"mohammed-haruna-sanusi-and-the-frc-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/articles-opinions\/mohammed-haruna-sanusi-and-the-frc-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Mohammed Haruna, Sanusi and the FRC Report"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Sufuyan Ojeifo<\/div>\n
On Wednesday, February 26, 2014, at the office, I was minding my business, trying to avoid another Sanusi argument when a column by Mohammed Haruna on the back page of\u00a0DAILY TRUST\u00a0<\/i>caught my eye.\u00a0\u00a0I later saw it in that day\u2019s edition of\u00a0THE NATION.<\/i>\u00a0\u00a0The title, \u201cGEJ versus Sanusi the whistleblower<\/i><\/b>,\u201d made me roll my eyes and exclaim silently to the heavens: how long before we move on to the next thing? (Caveat: To me, Sanusi is no whistleblower, but more on that later.)<\/div>\n
Despite my exasperation, I settled down to read Haruna\u2019s piece.\u00a0\u00a0You see, I often read Mohammed Haruna. This might sound strange considering that I rarely agree with him.\u00a0\u00a0But, it has to be said, the man writes well and with more restraint and clarity than most.<\/div>\n
I expected the column to support Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria.\u00a0\u00a0After all, class suicide is not a particularly appealing or rewarding endeavour.\u00a0\u00a0And Haruna is no fan of President Goodluck Jonathan.<\/div>\n
By and large, Haruna did the expected, deploying his considerable skill as a writer in shaping a message that was mostly consistent with the narrative Sanusi wants the country to swallow: \u201cI am a whistleblower who has incurred the president\u2019s wrath for blowing my whistle.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0But then came the unexpected twist: Haruna dished some dirt on Sanusi that inadvertently revealed the hollowness of the whistleblower narrative.<\/div>\n
Before I am accused of quoting Haruna out of context, I shall reproduce below five paragraphs from his column, presented here as published, with no breaks in between.<\/div>\n
According to Haruna:\u00a0\u201cThe trouble with Sanusi, however, was that he did not measure up to what he had led the public to expect of him as someone who had consistently spoken truth to power before he became CBN governor, and which he continued to do even after.<\/i><\/div>\n
\u201cThe report of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) which the president has relied upon to suspend the governor has listed his many alleged transgressions including the award of no-bid contracts in billions of Naira, the spending of billions on his own and his management\u2019s creature comforts, overpaying legal and public relations consultants and donating hundreds of millions of Naira to victims of natural and man-made disasters without board approval, etc.<\/i><\/div>\n
\u201cHis defence has been that he has the president\u2019s approval for some of the expenditures he\u2019d incurred and that with things like donations he was not the first governor to do so. He also says he has constantly reduced operating management costs since he became governor.<\/i><\/div>\n
\u201cThe governor\u2019s self-defence may well be tenable. But this is beside the point, which is that as a long standing social critic he should\u2019ve known better than to give those in authority sufficient ammunition to impugn his integrity and credibility. And this is exactly what the FRC report has done, even if only a fraction of its charges are true. The specific nature of the FRC report means it cannot be easily dismissed with the wave of a hand.<\/i><\/div>\n
\u201cThat he built a one billion Naira car park at his official residence, as is common knowledge, and the fact that he was always accompanied by a huge and expensive retinue of bank staff, friends and hangers-on alike, to receive awards and honours abroad and here at home, were enough to suggest he did not act with the degree of prudence and integrity his crusade for good governance and transparency demanded of him.\u201d<\/i><\/div>\n
To be honest, I was most surprised by the last bit of information contained in the excerpt from Haruna\u2019s column. A colleague whom I read the portion to, asked me: What sort of car park did Sanusi build with one billion naira? Was it one that could park cars automatically? Indeed, what sort of car park can justify such waste?<\/div>\n
Of course, I could not answer, as I have not seen the car park, relying entirely on Mohammed Haruna\u2019s column for that information. And Haruna\u2014whose credentials are far too lengthy to list here beyond the fact that he is a long-time journalist of good repute and spokesman to General Abdulsalami Abubakar when the latter served as Head of State\u2014is not given to frivolities.<\/div>\n
I also found myself agreeing with a private nod to Haruna\u2019s assertion that, \u201cThe specific nature of the FRC report means it cannot be easily dismissed with the wave of a hand<\/i>.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Which brings me to the third part of this piece: What are we to make of the FRC report and the many allegations it raises against Sanusi?\u00a0\u00a0Are the issues raised in that report \u201ccooked up\u201d by Sanusi\u2019s enemies as the naive ones among us want the rest of us to believe?\u00a0\u00a0Or is the report a true reflection of how Sanusi ran the finances of the CBN?<\/div>\n
With charges ranging from award of no-bid contracts in billions, through billions of naira spent on spurious subheads such as \u201cLunch for policemen,\u201d to more billions purportedly paid to an airline that has had no significant operations for over two years, and many other allegations, the FRC report, as Haruna says, \u201ccannot be easily dismissed with the wave of a hand.<\/i>\u201d<\/div>\n
Lastly, why is Sanusi not a whistleblower in my opinion?\u00a0\u00a0Imagine your account officer at your bank calls to say that N49,800 has been withdrawn suspiciously from your account, I bet you will rush to the bank immediately to get to the bottom of the matter.\u00a0\u00a0Imagine that on getting to the bank, an argument ensues between your account officer and a co-worker and, in the course of the argument, your account officer admits that she made a mistake, that only N12, 000 was withdrawn.\u00a0\u00a0While you will still demand that your money be found and returned, if, on getting back home, the same account officer now calls to say it is actually N20,000 that was withdrawn, would you not ask your bank to\u00a0\u00a0change such an account officer?\u00a0\u00a0Why then should we expect less from the man who was supposed to be our central banker, simply because he calls himself a whistleblower?<\/div>\n
    \n
  • \n
    Mr Ojeifo, journalist and publisher, sent this piece from Abuja.\u00a0<\/b><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n
    <\/div>\n
    <\/div>\n
    <\/div>\n
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    <\/div>\n
    Sufuyan Ojeifo<\/div>\n
    Editor- in- Chief<\/div>\n
    The Congresswatch Magazine<\/div>\n
    +234 8034727013 \u00a0 \u00a0+234 8023024800<\/div>\n
    <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    By Sufuyan Ojeifo On Wednesday, February 26, 2014, at the office, I was minding my business, trying to avoid another Sanusi argument when a column by Mohammed Haruna on the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23643,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\nMohammed Haruna, Sanusi and the FRC Report - Pointblank News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/articles-opinions\/mohammed-haruna-sanusi-and-the-frc-report\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mohammed Haruna, Sanusi and the FRC Report - 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