by Favour Afolabi
I have noticed that suspended CBN governor Sanusi Lamido, through his friend, Nasir El-Rufai’s [who is also alleged to have been awarded a N5 billion contract by Sanusi for which he has refused to openly discuss] protégé Japheth Omojuwa has been pushing an article titled “The CBN Never Received Any Letter From The Financial Reporting Council – Lamido Sanusi Speaks On Salient Issues” all in a bid to mislead the public on what exactly happened. Well, I have for the benefit of the same audience and others chosen to chronicle the 10-steps that led to Sanusi’s suspension thus:
1. The annual report of CBN for 2012 threw up some red flags when it was received by the Presidency in early 2013
2. One of the larger issues was that the report was not IFRS compatible – now for anyone that buys and reads newspapers rather than just getting free online downloads, you would know what IFRS compliance means [I won’t even bother trying to help those that don’t know what means here] and should also know that that the CBN led by Sanusi practically forced all Nigerian banks to comply with this standard
3. So it turned out the regulator’s books were not IFRS compliant leading to Ernst & Young, the retained auditors for CBN refusing to sign off on the reports!
4. When the Presidency received this report, it wrote Sanusi in May 2013 to explain several glaring anomalies within the reports along with what was listed above in [2] & [3] – these included nothing less than 30 instances of financial infractions in excess of N248b.
5. SANUSI responded to the Presidency while trying to cover up his tracks leading to the Presidency deciding to send his response along with the books he cooked to the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria of Nigeria [FRC] which did a 13-paged REPORT/RESPONSE to the President dated June 7th 2013! [FYI: The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) of Nigeria is a federal government agency established by the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria Act, No. 6, 2011. It is a federal government Parastatal under the supervision of the Federal Ministry of Trade and Investment. The FRC is responsible for, among other things, developing and publishing accounting and financial reporting standards to be observed in the preparation of financial statements of public entities in Nigeria; and for related matters.]
6. This report which many of Sanusi’s supporters’ club members are refusing to read shows how their hero has been intentionally reckless with the funds of the apex bank along with being irresponsible in focusing on the exact mandate of the bank
7. So here is where the lies crumble – “Sanusi is being clever-by-half by saying he never got a letter from FRC because HE WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO – it was the Presidency that wrote FRC to investigate the books of CBN and so their RESPONSE/REPORT can only go to the Presidency not to SANUSI” – such can only be shared with SANUSI by the Presidency at its discretion or as evidence to be provided during an investigation process! Nevertheless, it is apparent that SANUSI must have got wind of the contents of this report [guessing by the next steps he took]
8. But of course, Sanusi cannot deny not receiving the query in [4] above from the Presidency hence the reason why he mentioned in his first interview with CNBC within hours of being suspended that “he indeed got a letter from the Presidency and that he has already responded to it and he doesn’t know what they are asking of him again but he can only guess that this is a way by Aso Rock to divert attention away from the NNPC probe” [not his exact words] – while of course going ahead with the next chapter in his already set-out script!
9. All of these would explain why within 24 hours of his suspension, he secured a court judgement via a kangaroo setting forbidding him from being arrested rather than for him to secure a judgement forbidding the president from suspending/sacking him without the consent of the Senate based on the CBN ACT? This would tell you that SANUSI knew what was coming to him all along!
10. Well, now you know why SANUSI created the Nollywood blockbuster movie titled “From $49.8Bn-> $10.8Bn-> $20Bn”, which reminds me of Argo [you should see this movie if you haven’t] to get some self-imposed-gullible Nigerians to see him as a knight-in-shining-armour-whistle-blower-who-has-come-to-deliver-the-nation-from-NNPC securing their sympathy in the process so that when the hammer is finally slammed on him, he can quickly draw on the political capital that he has secured claiming that he is being victimized for telling the truth!
Well a few of us that have followed this drama long before it became public knowledge can safely tell you that “SANUSI’s announcement that he won’t be seeking a second-term in office way back in March 2013 was after the Presidency had already gotten wind of these infractions” – and he himself knew deep down that he was never going to finish even this first term in office!
Let those Nigerians that insist that he is saint remember how Farouk Lawan also claimed to be the one that would deliver Nigerians from the oil cabal until he was caught on video stuffing $620,000 bribe money into his cap and babariga – some of us simply refuse to be fooled – so pick the class you choose to belong – the FOOLED or the WISE ONES!
Favour Afolabi is founder and principal consultant at Online Republic Media and president and CEO, Viva Realty. He tweets from @FavourAfolabi and is on Facebook HERE. This article was first published on The Scoop.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
