SUSPENSION AND THE CBN

Suspension or removal is not the issue. Good faith is what we should address our minds to. Is the President acting in good faith in removing the CBN governor and is he leaving the procedure for removal open to abuse? Idi Amin Dada of Uganda exercised his absolute power and was the last President to sack his CBN governor. He is a poor act to follow.

 The CBN Act that protects the job of the governor did not set out to protect Sanusi the person, but to protect the CBN governor from undue political interference and by extension, protect the economy of Nigeria, from the whims and caprices of any political party or head of state. 

Whilst the President has every right to exercise his powers, he should be cautious in not dismantling the structures that allow societies to prosper. Affairs of state can be very delicate and we should tread with caution as even the PDP could be on the receiving end tomorrow when inevitably they find themselves in opposition. Cross carpeting is proof of this. Such situations are simply not good for Nigeria. Circumventing the law by using the word “suspension” is a very poor disguise and it insults our intelligence to say, “Sanusi is still the CBN governor, and he can return if exonerated from any wrongdoing.” Haba, we should be shown some respect. It must have escaped Mr President’s mind that he has already nominated Sanusi’s replacement. It is de facto a removal.

The job of any central bank governor is tied to the economy. Recently, when Ben Bernanke was stepping down as chairman of US Federal Reserve, the markets responded sharply. The post is that sensitive. Shortly after Sanusi’s suspension was announced, the Nigeria Stock Exchange responded; stocks plunged and the Naira took a record dive. No investor wants to put his or her money where the key money manager can be removed from office at a whim. We crave foreign direct investment yet our actions clearly repel it.

The presidential spokesman, Reuben Abati, has suggested that there is compelling evidence against Sanusi that could be used to send him to jail. I take it he is referring to the purported infractions revealed in the report of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria. The president stated during his media chat that the CBN’s account has been audited for 2012 and 2013. It is curious because they have only been able to accuse Sanusi precisely because he has audited accounts!

NNPC nko? Their accounts have not been audited for 8 years! This is a cooperation on whose head several allegations of corruption are dangling, including those of the Financial Times, Human Rights Watch, Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), KPMG, Transparency International, as well as the various committees and task forces set up to investigate fuel subsidy payments. Their accounts have not been audited and yet all this rot. We cannot even begin to imagine what is going on in there and nobody has been sanctioned. Sanusi is being persecuted for crying foul. The only pity is that he did not resign before he was suspended.  

They say that Sanusi is playing politics but is Nigeria not a single resource economy? Surely that must guarantee a strong relationship between our petrodollars and the CBN. There must be controls. If oil money goes unaccounted for, it is the job of the CBN to caution and advise the president accordingly. That is the principal job of the CBN governor. He should be getting thanks.

So if truly the NNPC spent billions of dollars on kerosene subsidy without records, who authorised such spending? Subsidised kerosene should sell for N50/litre, but Nigerians pay N200 for the product when it is available. Besides, where does the NNPC derive its power to spend on behalf of the government outside the federation account? In 2012, it was revealed that the corporation was operating a secret JP Morgan account. When did the NNPC become federal government’s banker? These are some of the grave lapses that the CBN governor exposed.  Our primary source of wealth is being handled in such a clandestine, reckless and fraudulent manner and yet no remedy and we remain silent.

We should all applaud Sanusi. Instead, he is being treated as a criminal, with his passport seized for pointing out a clear and present danger. His reward is that the machinery of government is being used to destroy and soil his name.  Allowing this to happen and not standing by him exposes us all, whether or not we find him arrogant. The long queues at the petrol stations are back, evidence perhaps of our missing $20 Billon. If ever there was an opportunity where we should make our feelings known, it is now.   

INDUSTRIAL ESPIONAGE

I am tempted to ask if the federal and FCT governments are content with making Abuja and Nigeria a contract pursuing, civil service country. What role is the FCT expected to play in the actualization of the National Industrial Skills Development Programme and the Nigeria Industrial Revolution Plan? These are blueprints aimed at fast tracking Nigeria’s industrial drive, but unfortunately, they appear to only exist on paper. If the FCT administration were willing to industrialize Abuja, there is one way to find out: through government’s commitment to the development of the Idu Industrial Estate, Abuja. Like the University of Abuja, it is in their back yard. What measures have they taken to attract new businesses to the Park and improve existing ones?

The infrastructure in Idu Industrial Estate is deplorable apart from the road network, which is a slow work in progress. Electricity supply is erratic and incapable of powering industries located there. Communication is a challenge as no masts have been erected there. Those who have braved the situation by investing in generators and boreholes are bullied into paying duplicated taxes and levies. As if all this were not bad enough, last week, a unit from AMAC rallied thugs – some in uniform and others in mufti – to storm the entrance into Idu and dismantled and destroyed at gunpoint signboards belonging to businesses located at the industrial park. Upon enquiry, injured parties were violently set upon. Some company staff were beaten for speaking up against this nonsense. 

They say that the signposts were erected illegally. However, two arguments readily flaw this. First, no signpost was spared, meaning all the companies erected them illegally. In this case, shouldn’t the agency issue a notice that those signboards should be removed if conditions for their erection were not met? The second point is that some of the factories actually approached the agency for approval and paid the levy to erect the signboards. Why have they been penalised too? 

The matter is really so sad, because it again shows a complete disconnect from policy to implementation. We increasingly see the government as one who only talks the talk. They can make speech but that is all. It is clear that the agency does not fully recognise what its role is. It is a failure on their part to not properly regulate and police signage that will in the first place occasion such an occurrence. What message do they send to the world? “We want you to come and invest here. There is no light and no water, and the roads are not the best yet. But Nigeria has plenty natural resources and you can come and develop them further but God help you if you put up a sign showing that you have actually taken the plunge, the risk, are employing Nigerians, who are therefore not idle and a burden on the state and guess what are also contributing to the development of the country by paying their taxes! But the company cannot let you know where they are, as we will not let them put up their signage to notify potential customers that they are there.” Isn’t this rubbish?

If the FCT’s reason for this obnoxious act is to check environmental degradation, then its authorities should note that Idu is an industrial park, and like any of its kind all over the world, signage is important in locating the numerous factories operating there. If, on the other hand, the purpose is an aggressive revenue generation, we warn that the FCT should critically weigh its revenue generation drive against boosting industrial and commercial activities in the territory, especially considering the difficult conditions that these companies are operating under and the dire lack of employment opportunities here.   

   

 Simply put, Nigeria’s industrialization policy lacks the ingredients to effectively drive the economy. A government that has not adequately invested in human capital and infrastructure is frustrating and averting enthusiastic investors who are risking all to run their businesses in such unfriendly circumstances.   Government officials, instead of sitting in their offices, should visit Idu and other industrial parks and see what is being manufactured by some of the factories there and try to help them improve; except, of course, if they are content with our importation culture, starting from the chair and desk that they are sitting on.  

A Yoruba proverb says, “Ile ti ko ni’lekun ni asinwin n ko wo” (It is the house that has no doors that the madman enters). It is clear that we have no doors in the house of our forefathers who have through sweat, deprivation, selfless denials and risks built this nation to evolve to the geographical expression called Nigeria. We have let in lunatics; we need to take risks, chase them out and hang the doors.   

CAST THE FIRST STONE

When did we become so discriminatory? Has it increasingly become our nature to discriminate against any sector of our society just for being different? He is an Ibo man, a Yoruba man, a Hausa man, a settler; they have come to take over this place, why can’t they go back to their place? There is something intrinsically wrong with this, as Nigeria belongs to all of us.

There is also no justification for a people to take the law into their own hands in the name of ridding the land of perceived misfits or foreigners. It has happened in various parts of the country where young youth corpers have been maimed and killed by a community simply for being outsiders and a little different. They are as lambs to slaughter. But I digress. I wanted to speak of morality and the law. The government has just criminalised homosexuality. Ever since the anti-gay bill was passed into law, people have been brutalised and killed. In Bauchi, seven suspected homosexuals who were taken to court in Anguwan Jaki, Bauchi State for trial narrowly escaped lynching by a mob at the court premises! The judge also narrowly escaped summary justice for not carrying out his perceived role to the full. People actually feel justified in meting out what they believe is moral justice.                

Proponents of the new law are getting what they intended. In the midst of all the confusion and broken promises, with crucial bills lying fallow, one wonders where the presidency and legislature acquired the kind of vigour, willpower and man hours to speedily dispense with this bill in record time. If they channelled half the energy expended on the anti-gay law to the PIB, subsidy probe, missing funds, insecurity, power and unemployment, Nigerians would have seen some results by now. Instead, we are distracted and our anger redirected at people who have not hurt us in any way.

I may have my own opinion regarding two people of the same sex involved in a romantic relationship, but it is not for me to judge them when God has made it quite clear that judgement is His. Jesus Christ demonstrated his understanding of man’s hypocrisy towards fellow man when he proclaimed, “He who had not sinned should cast the first stone.”         

  

Talking of fornication, Abuja must be the prostitution and human trafficking capital of Nigeria. Young ladies are trafficked to Abuja with the sole purpose of providing entertainment and sexual gratification for rich politicians and civil servants old enough to be their fathers. But at this political level, there is no ethnic discrimination! It is an exclusive club that excludes the rest of us and we seem powerless to restrain it. Why?     

Our Mosques and Churches are filled on Fridays and Sundays. Before we start any business, we pray. Do we truly understand what we pray for? Do we appreciate the responsibility that comes with our faith? Can we honestly say that we act as Muslims or Christians when we so easily close our eyes to the injustices around us and victimise anybody who is weak or just not like us? If we attack others or stand by and watch injustices then are we not terrorists too? Isn’t “love your neighbour as yourself” the greatest show of love? “Do unto others as you would have them do onto you.” We are all hypocrites, because we have attached conditions to these divine tenets, such as “unless they are gay, from another tribe or from another religion”.      

We have ‘baby factories’ where young girls, are “reared” to carry pregnancies which are sold to dubious buyers, often for ritual purposes and God knows what else. What inhumanity surpasses this? What laws have been passed to combat this? How many of such criminals have we lynched? We have deplorable infrastructure and missing public funds but when we perish from poor services, do we stone the politicians driving in their latest cars and flowing robes? Our world is a diverse one occupied by all kinds of people, with an equal right to be here. God in His infinite wisdom did not make us all the same. Why? I cannot fully answer that question but what has the black man ever done to anybody to experience racism and discrimination? Why are some disabled from birth, what was their crime? Black, White, Indian, Chinese, thin, fat, strong, weak. Dare I say it, gay or straight? Does anybody really have a choice in determining what we are?

And if as has been alleged, homosexuality were a disease, why would you criminalise it? Having a condition is not a crime but rather a matter that needs understanding. We are punishing these people for being. This cannot be right and therefore I cannot sign up for it. What about you?    

CROSS-CARPETING

The re-defection of former vice president Atiku Abubakar from the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC) is another example of the shallowness of our leadership quality in this nation. We have unimpressive politicians taking political decamping to another level. It is unprecedented and laughable all at the same time.  Carpet crossing, a term not unfamiliar to us, has become a pastime here, which really borders on the incredulous. We have such characters as Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo. In fact, his recent movement to the APC made it the sixth time Okorocha would switch parties! The situation is so distasteful now that one has to crosscheck to ascertain who belongs where.

As soon as five of the seven PDP governors opposed to the former chairman decamped to the APC, a floodgate of carpet crossing was opened. State legislators, federal legislators, party supporters and political heavyweights loyal to those governors followed their lead. In most cases, party secretariats at state level were repainted and renamed to reflect the change in direction! What does this mean? Our politician’s are irritating flies searching aimlessly for wherever there is booty and flying to wherever they need to do to get a foothold. Their primary concern is to get some, to be of that exclusive club. Hey, look at me, I still de o! I am still relevant and must be settled.

Our constitution guarantees freedom of association. Yes it does, but what is freedom without responsibility? We can never be truly free unless we have responsibility. It is obvious that our politicians are taking full advantage of the lapses in the Electoral Act. This is certainly a smear on their character. Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Attahiru Jega, has conceded that the Act is not clear on the issue of defection. One wonders if current trends do not embarrass him enough to propose an amendment to that effect. Beneficiaries of our lax political system have refused to view the argument from moral and ideological standpoints, whether or not the law is ambiguous. It is straightforward enough; a mandate won under Party ‘A’ cannot be transferred if the custodian switches to Party ‘B’ because the electorate would have voted the candidate of the latter in the first place if that were what they wanted. A defector who holds a representative seat is a thief if he defects and holds on to that seat. It should not be tolerated. He has robbed the electorate.

What interest does a decamping politician serve? What do they stand for? What message are they passing across to the electorate? What changes when they switch allegiance?  It is business as usual because what we have are political parties with no ideologies. Ideally, you join a party because it has a set of principles and beliefs compatible with yours. So, those who move from one party to another are reflective of a chaotic political madhouse full of charlatans, where anything goes. They represent our Sodom and Gomorrah, where anything and everything can fit anywhere; both parties are actually two sides of the same coin.

Ideology, a way of life, a belief system is what makes it highly unlikely for a Republican to become a Democrat in America, or a Conservative Party member of parliament in the United Kingdom to switch to the Labour Party.  Allegiance is not to the party per se but to its beliefs, which beliefs remain constant, irrespective of any internal crisis. It is OK to argue and agree or agree to differ but parties and their constitutions must be strong enough to operate within a set of rules that all the members can respect and trust. Digging in and ensuring that your party and its belief system are not derailed is the promise that we make to the electorate at election time. Jumping ship is irresponsible.

In South Africa, the ruling African National Congress has been around for over a century, yet not all black or colored South Africans pitch a tent with the party. On the other hand, ANC members stay with their party. An example of such allegiance is former president Thabo Mbeki, who, despite being humiliated out of office in favour of the incumbent Jacob Zuma, is still a staunch ANC member. He bowed to the party’s wishes.     

    

Perhaps the electoral Act should make provision for independent candidacy, so that individuals who do not align with the ideologies of any of the political parties can stand for election and test their popularity among the electorate.  Currently, precedent or not, we are practicing a system of stolen mandates. We should stand up against it or are we also carpet crossers? Arsenal today, Chelsea tomorrow! Can anyone so fickle be really taken seriously? What do you stand for?