{"id":24286,"date":"2014-03-13T21:53:48","date_gmt":"2014-03-13T20:53:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/?p=24286"},"modified":"2014-03-13T21:53:48","modified_gmt":"2014-03-13T20:53:48","slug":"sanusi-the-new-york-times-and-intellectual-racism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/articles-opinions\/sanusi-the-new-york-times-and-intellectual-racism\/","title":{"rendered":"Sanusi, The New York Times and Intellectual Racism"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
By Sufuyan Ojeifo<\/div>\n
Suspended Central Bank of Nigeria governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, is a man that can put a canary to shame.\u00a0\u00a0Even when he has nothing new or meaningful to say, he must seek out a journalist somewhere and sing his heart out.<\/div>\n
As such, it surprises nobody that he has been rehashing some of the inconsistent songs he has been singing in the last few months to\u00a0The New York Times.<\/i>\u00a0\u00a0What is noteworthy, however, is how\u00a0The New York Times<\/i>\u00a0allowed itself to become a platform for peddling Sanusi\u2019s views without making any effort to reflect Sanusi\u2019s inconsistency and unreliability. While it is possible that the newspaper suffered a lapse of editorial judgment, the poor journalism exhibited by the newspaper smacks of intellectual racism.<\/div>\n
To be clear, the issue at stake is not whether\u00a0The New York Times<\/i>\u00a0should have published its recent article (culled by The Nation of Wednesday, March 12, 2014 and a number of other national newspapers)\u00a0largely reflecting Sanusi\u2019s opinions. Even though the newspaper obtained a quote from presidential spokesman Reuben Abati in an ostensible attempt to balance its article, what stood out was the lack of a requisite background that would have properly contextualised Sanusi\u2019s views.<\/div>\n
For\u00a0The New York Times<\/i>\u00a0to have taken as gospel Sanusi\u2019s views on the $20 billion purportedly missing from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) without reflecting the number of times Sanusi\u2019s figures has changed is a disservice not only to the newspaper but the ideals of good journalism.<\/div>\n
It is important to recall that in September 2013 Sanusi wrote to President Goodluck Jonathan alleging that $49.8 billion from the sale of crude oil was missing.\u00a0\u00a0He later said he\u2019d made a mistake and that the actual figure was $12 billion.\u00a0\u00a0In February 2014 Sanusi\u2019s figure changed to $20 billion.\u00a0\u00a0The question that naturally arises from this is: how would\u00a0The New York Times<\/i>\u00a0have presented the article it did on Sanusi if the Chair of the US Federal Reserve System flip-flopped in the manner that the suspended CBN governor did?<\/div>\n
It is an incontestable fact that a banker who is flippant with figures simply cannot be credible.\u00a0\u00a0Consequently, the failure to reflect that Sanusi is inconsistent with figures, and as such cannot be relied upon\u2014whether in the court of law or the court of public opinion\u2014is the great undoing of\u00a0The New York Times<\/i>\u00a0article.<\/div>\n
To further diminish its stature, the newspaper related in its report that, according to Sanusi, President Jonathan doesn\u2019t want him to bring out any more information that would get the administration into trouble. This is unfair to say the least. President Jonathan, as everybody knows, is the most liberal president Nigeria has ever had.\u00a0\u00a0Moreover, everybody in Nigeria is equally aware that nobody can stop Sanusi, being the canary that he is, from singing, even if all he does is to keep flip-flopping when it comes to figures.<\/div>\n
To put this matter in the most lucid way,\u00a0The New York Times<\/i>\u00a0showed great contempt for Nigeria and Nigerians by failing to hold Sanusi to the same level of responsibility in fiscal precision as it would the Chair of the US Federal Reserve System.\u00a0\u00a0The newspaper is, in effect, saying that the Chair of the US Federal Reserve System must be sure of figures before going public with them, but the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria can play with figures all he wants because he is a lesser intellectual being.\u00a0\u00a0This is a grievous insult to Sanusi\u2014even if the man in his eagerness to outperform all canaries do not realise this\u2014and all Nigerians.<\/div>\n
It is also important to note that, for\u00a0The New York Times\u00a0<\/i>to dismiss the many infractions listed by the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRCN) against Sanusi by saying he may have \u201csidestepped civil-service rules\u201d is to raise the possibility that the article was a sponsored foundation-laying report aimed at tarnishing the Nigerian government.<\/div>\n
For the avoidance of doubt, the FRCN report listed infractions ranging from tax evasion by all staff of the CBN\u2014due to the institution\u2019s failure to implement the provisions of the Personal Income Tax (Amendment) Act 2007 under Sanusi\u2019s watch\u2014through billions of naira spent on spurious subheads such as \u2018Lunch for policemen\u2019, to more billions purportedly paid to an airline that had no significant operations for over two years. These are just a few of the very specific and detailed charges against Sanusi\u2019s stewardship at the CBN.<\/div>\n
Despite the attempt of\u00a0The New York Times\u00a0<\/i>to present Sanusi as a credible source of information, the facts contained in the FRCN report paint a contrary picture. Apart from the shocking portrait of incompetence, financial recklessness, waste and outright fraud that the report revealed, everybody now knows that Sanusi\u2019s CBN could not even observe the corporate governance practices which were the basis that Sanusi himself used in hounding several bankers like Erastus Akingbola and Cecelia Ibru out of their jobs.<\/div>\n
The major lesson in the foregoing\u2014which would likely be lost on someone too busy putting canaries to shame\u2014is that a newspaper like\u00a0The New York Times<\/i>\u00a0ought to be more circumspect when putting together a report from a source whose reliability in his designated field of competence is not worth wasting newsprint on.<\/div>\n