SANUSI AND MISSING $20B

Perhaps no issue has been more discussed, investigated and analysed than the one about the $20 billion ‎oil revenue that was allegedly not remitted to the federation account. It is important to note that the matter was first raised by His Royal Highness the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, while he was still Governor of the Central Bank. It contributed to the controversial exit of Mr Sanusi from the apex bank so obviously it is not a matter that his highness wants to let die.

There were other reasons for his removal however and a damning report by the Financial ‎Reporting Council noted that Mr. Sanusi spent a whopping N1.257 billion for lunch for policemen and private guards in 2012. It also accused the apex bank governor of violating financial regulations and carrying out activities with financial implications not related to the CBN's mandate.

The Council described Mr. Sanusi's response to the President's query as “a clear display of incompetence, nonchalance, fraud, wastefulness, abuse of due process and deliberate efforts to misrepresent facts.”

But his royal highness now prefers to be remembered as the whistle blower who lost his job because he ‎discovered huge fraud at the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation.

Nonetheless one had expected that after a series of investigation by the two chambers of the National Assembly, a federal government inter-ministerial panel, report from the world renown forensic audit company, Pricewaterhousecooper,  and un-numbered editorials, articles and columns by every media in this country, the matter would by now had been laid to rest. But obviously we have not reckoned with the extraordinary capacity of a man whose ego would not let him hear a different truth from the one he had chosen.

At a time when the nation was jubilating the unprecedented triumph of an opposition party at the polls and the even more remarkable gesture of a sitting president accepting the result of such an election and congratulating the  ‎winner even before the last votes were counted, Mr Sanusi was on all kinds of international media raging about the need to vindicate him and pronounce the petroleum minister guilty of misappropriation.

He was famously on the CNN earlier where, not withstanding all the conclusions by the different investigative panels, he told Christine Amanpour that he hopes further investigation would be conducted on the missing 20  billion dollars.

A few days ago he was again on the Financial Times giving his own dubious reading of the full report of the PWC which actually cleared the Minister and NNPC of wrongdoing, and directed that the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), a subsidiary of the NNPC, remit $1.4 billion, being proceeds of signatures bonuses, to the Federation Account. The Minister of Petroleum had immediately ordered  the money refunded and had hoped, like most of us, that she had heard the last of the matter.

But writing under the headline, ‎”Unanswered questions on Nigeria's missing oil revenue billions,” Mr Sanusi wanted to nix all talk that the incoming administration of Gen Muhammadu Buhari was not going to probe anyone. He said, ”Nigerians did not vote for an amnesty for anyone”. Well, that implies that the emir will also be requested to answer those charges made against him by the FRC.

According to him: “The lines of investigation suggested by this audit need to be pursued. Any officials found responsible for involvement in this apparent breach of trust must be charged.”

The question is, Charged with what? Mr Sanusi has bandied figures about since he first wrote his controversial letter to President Jonathan on September 25th 2013, alleging that a whopping $49.8 billion had not been remitted to the Federation Account by the NNPC. After the inter-departmental Reconciliation Committee set up by the Finance minister submitted that $10.8 billion was closer to the mark, Mr Sanusi now insisted that it is $12 billion. After the Senate hearing began on 4th February, 2014 Mr Sanusi suddenly raised the amount to $20 billion.

In the end, the Senate Committee, headed by Senator Ahmed Makarfi, concluded its investigation on May 28th 2014, and cleared Mrs. Madueke and the NNPC, saying there was no missing money. However, this did not go down well with his royal highness.

It is becoming an obsession with Mr Sanusi who is determined to see his position vindicated by all means. The evidence is not on his side, public opinion is on the side of moving on and the government has exhausted all avenues for investigating matters of this nature yet the former governor is not going to let the matter rest.

There is something altogether unhealthy about this sort of behaviour from one of the highest ranking emirs in Nigeria.  Going on CNN, writing articles for FT, granting interviews to news media and generally acting as if he was on a crusade to convict a female minister is unbecoming of a man of such statue.

Written by Samuel Abah.