Sanusi Lamido Sanusi: When A President Prevaricates Too Much

In April last year, President Goodluck Jonathan had the opportunity to become an anti-corruption hero, but he blew it. The Financial Reporting Council Report that was presented to him was waiting for action but he was prevaricating. Now the subject of that damning report that would have made Jonathan a hero, suspended governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, has become the hero, while the president is the villain. What an irony! Although Sanusi admitted to Metropole Magazine in an interview that the president asked him to resign but he refused, the reason the president asked him to resign was not because of the report from the Financial Reporting Council but rather for the alleged leaking of Sanusi’s letter to the president to former president Olusegun Obasanjo and governor of Rivers State, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi which happened about six months after the president was supposed to have reported Sanusi to the National Assembly to do “the needful”, apologies to Stella Oduah, the former minister of aviation.

But try as hard as the presidency would want many to believe, it appears most Nigerians believe that Sanusi is being hounded because he blew the lid on the alleged missing $20 billion allegedly used by the NNPC to pay for kerosene subsidy.

If there is one thing that many Nigerians have taken out of the suspension of the CBN governor and the missing billions of dollars, it is that Nigeria is saddled with a “weak” president. A weak president in the sense that he prevaricates a lot before taking critical decisions. Why should they arrive at this damning conclusion about their president? The CBN governor was allegedly indicted by a financial council legally constituted since April, 2013, the president in his characteristic weakness failed to take action to punish Sanusi until Sanusi out-foxed the presidency and blew the whistle on the missing or unremitted funds from the NNPC.

The action of Sanusi perhaps in a desperate bid to rubbish a presidency that was lacking in courage to deal with him over his alleged infractions has turned him to anti-corruption hero at home and abroad while the president is now looking so bad before his fellow countrymen and the international community.

The presidency of Nigeria even before Jonathan was infamous for its corruption and profligacy. So when a well known corrupt institution(presidency) started accusing an award winning central bank governor of corruption shortly after the governor accused the NNPC that has close link with the presidency of not remitting billions of dollars to the federation account, who would Nigerians and the international community believe? Of course they will go with Sanusi. If Jonathan had taken action since April 2013, perhaps the story would have been different. But he did not act because corruption that Sanusi was accused of does not bother him, as long as it was not a threat to his reelection in 2015. It is when there is a threat to his reelection in 2015 that you would know that Jonathan is not weak after all. In fact Jonathan is selectively weak.

When former governor of Bayelsa State, Timipre Sylva worked against Jonathan, the president moved decisively against him and made sure that he was denied the ticket of PDP for second term. When Governor Amaechi chooses to work with those opposed to Jonathan’s reelection, the presidency quickly empowered his opponents in Rivers State. When it comes to dealing with some serious state matter the president prevaricates a lot, and that Obasanjo side of him which he usually applies to people like Sylva and Amaechi disappears. With the belated suspension of Sanusi a few months before the end of his tenure, only the die-hard supporters of Jonathan still believe that he does not have something to hide especially at a time when the National Assembly is still investigating the missing $20 billion that Sanusi raised the alarm over.

There are many that have been supporting Jonathan. Perhaps they still do? But Jonathan is always, “falling their hands” by his actions. Many decided to support Jonathan because he is a minority president. Such supporters argue that because Jonathan is of a minority stock, two majority ethnic groups in the north and south are conspiring to stop him from getting a second term, telling him to sacrifice his second term in “national interest”. A sacrifice that none of these big tribes were able to make when it was one of their own that was occupying the presidency.

Supporters of Jonathan argue that when Obasanjo was elected president in 1999 he defeated fellow Yoruba candidate, Olu Falae who incidentally was the preferred candidate of the Yoruba. But the Yoruba alone could not make Falae president. Other Nigerians made Obasanjo president. But once Obasanjo entered the Villa, the Yoruba that did not vote for him became his biggest supporters. The support was so palpable that when Obasanjo committed impeachable offences and the National Assembly led by speaker Ghali Na’aba wanted to impeach him, the then chairman of PDP, Chief Audu Ogbeh warned Na’aba that he should thread softly saying that if Obasanjo is impeached the Yoruba would go to war. Ogbe said that he told Na’aba that even though the Yoruba did not vote for Obasanjo, “it is when you kill a madman that you would know that he has a family”. With such ominous implication of impeaching Obasanjo, Na’aba and co. backed out.

Similarly by 2003, Obasanjo’s presidency had nothing to offer. Corruption was rife. The north that helped Obasanjo to power was already disappointed and the vice president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar was positioning himself to takeover from Obasanjo, but Obasanjo’s OPC brothers starting issuing threats that the Yoruba would not accept anything but eight straight years for Obasanjo. They had their way. Obasanjo was therefore reelected in 2003 not because of performance but as a result of blackmail by OPC and Yoruba leaders. Also much earlier in 1979, president Shehu Shagari was given automatic ticket for second term in 1983 and was already enjoying his second term when he was overthrown by officers from the north where he hails from. Shagari’s second term was not based on performance but he got it anyway because he is from a majority tribe. Today Jonathan is told to show proof that he performed before he could get a second term and his supporters are saying this is unfair, but his proclivity of being very slow in taking decisive action when it matters most is “falling the hands” of his supporters and they are finding it difficult selling his second term bid to sceptical Nigerians.