CBN Governor, Sanusi, to go on forced pre- retirement leave
Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, will be eased out of office three months before the expiration of his tenure, Sahara Reporters has reported.
The online news medium reported that the garrulous CBN governor was compelled to take an early retirement following his recent leaked letter to President Goodluck Jonathan detailing the theft of close to $50 billion in oil proceeds by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
The governor later revised the figure to $12 billion.
The report quoted anonymous sources as claiming that President Goodluck Jonathan believes that Sanusi has been making erratic pronouncements just to demean the office of the President. The source also claims that the CBN governor agreed to the early retirement following threats from the presidency to investigate his spending habits.
Sanusi’s tenure as CBN governor is supposed to expire in June 2014, after which he is expected to pursue his ambition to become the next Emir of Kano.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNP), which is at the centre of his allegation, has vehemently denied any such diversion of funds meant for the Federation Account as alleged by the CBN governor.
According to the NNPC, three agencies of government are involved in collecting accruals from oil for the Federal Government and that the one that concerned it was properly lodged in the Federation Account with the CBN.
The corporation said that CBN should have crossed checked his facts with relevant agencies before embarking on such misinformed letter and leaking it to the media.
The NNPC insinuated that Sanusi might just be driven by a hidden political agenda or simply playing to the gallery.
The CBN governor has been roundly condemned across the country for making such huge allegation on the flight of his imagination, without proper checks and investigation.
A professor of political economy and Director of Lagos Business School, Prof Pat Utomi, was quoted as saying that the tenure of Sanusi as the CBN governor had been an unmitigated disaster.
Utomi said , while reacting to the change of position by Sanusi in the investigation of the almost $50billion he alleged was missing from the coffers of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), that the Nigerian economy is in grave danger of possible collapse due mainly to wrong actions, decisions and comments of the governor of the Central Bank, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.
He said that if not urgently attended to the damage that he may leave after his tenure in office will take the nation's economy more than 10 years to recover from.
This was the view of a professor of political economy and Director of Lagos Business School, Prof Pat Utomi while
Describing Sanusi as the wrong man for the job of the Central Bank governor because of his inability to control his emotions and lack of depth on some economic issues, Utomi wondered why Sanusi will always want to be the first to comment on critical national issues despite his sensitive position.
Reacting to the change of position of Sanusi who had in a memo to President Goodluck Jonathan, which was leaked to the press, accused the government-owned oil firm, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, of systematically diverting over N8 trillion crude oil sales proceeds being sales proceeds between January 2012 and July 2013, Utomi cautioned Sanusi to watch his steps.
Wondering if Sanusi is not aware of the implications of whatever he says about the economy, Utomi said, 'the comments of a Central Bank governor can make an economy to collapse, the damage Nigeria has suffered from some of his mistakes will take the nation about 10 years to recover from.'
'I have always told him when we were friends that the last person to comment on an issue like missing money in the economy should be the Central Bank governor, because the comment of a Central Bank governor can make the economy to collapse.
'He cannot help himself, that is why I have always said that he is the wrong person for the job, because he reacts to emotion rather than thinking it through and if you are in such position you cannot afford such a luxury,' he said.