“The International Monetary Fund (IMF) had severally made cases in support of the need to allow the apex bank retain its current autonomy. This is because it feared that if CBN’s power to manage the monetary policy and price stability is taken away, the Nigerian economy could suffer — ” Azimah Momoh Jimoh, THE GUARDIAN, March 2, 2014, p 20. Irrespective of the university you attend to read economics, you eventually end up reading about the role of the Central Bank or, as in the USA, the Federal Reserve Bank. While the IMF is generally held to be correct, the degree of autonomy differs from one country to the next – depending on the statutes regulating the activities of the Central Bank; henceforth called the Bank. Meanwhile, there is a need to distinguish between the autonomy which nations are advised to concede to the Bank; as opposed to licence given to any individual, within the Bank to operate with impunity – including the Governor. To the best of my knowledge, there is no nation in the world which had granted absolute power to the Chief Executive of its Central Bank. None. So, if the Nigerian Acts, which conceded autonomy to the CBN Governor, had inadvertently omitted to include adequate safeguards against abuse of power, then, it is the time to amend those laws to redress the balance. In the same Guardian newspaper, Chief Philip Asiodu had made the observation that “it’s not the role of the CBN to do or announce that the CBN is giving N200 billion to support agriculture or N300 billion to support education.” To make matters worse for the CBN, another contributor to the same Guardian newspaper, Lemmy Ughegbe, pointed to the sort of trap the CBN set for itself when it got involved in implementation of projects which fell squarely under the purview of fiscal policy when he reminded us that, “For example, while Bayero University, Kano (BUK) was said to have collected N4 billion, the school authorities claimed it got only N1 billion.” In reality, neither BUK nor any other university in Nigeria should have received a kobo directly from the CBN because, again, it does not fall within its mandates. How did that intervention stabilize exchange and interest rates or contribute to full employment? President Goodluck Jonathan and Lamido Sanusi Having made that point, the blame shifts to the President and his advisers – whoever they may be. Virtually all the reckless spending, and, may be, embezzlement charged against the CBN Governor, were committed years ago; and the facts were known to the President last year. The first question, which raises doubts about the President’s sincerity, is one which no other commentator had addressed. That is: was 2012 the first year that the President of Nigeria read the Financial Reporting Council’s, FRC, report? If so, the next question is: why? This is supposed to be an annual report and Sanusi had been there almost five years. If yes, was the CBN in total compliance all along and has recklessness crept in between last year and now? If there were lapses in the past, why were they not publicized and why now that the CBN Governor is making the administration uncomfortable? The reason I am asking these questions is simple. We need to know if the CBN Act is grievously defective and needs to be amended to provide additional safeguards to prevent another CBN Governor in the future from spending billions to tar the road to his/her own village – and citing the example of the latitude given to his/her predecessor to fund a university in his own state; when all public universities are in dire need. Distribution of national wealth, not private funds, is a fiscal matter and not the job of the monetary policy makers and funding a school is purely income distribution and Sanusi knows it. At the same time, we must not be stampeded into tampering with the CBN Act on account of what might have amounted to a conspiracy of silence between the Presidency and the CBN to shield from public view all the irregularities which had been perpetrated under Sanusi’s watch. If Sanusi wants to be honest with us, he will admit that the Central Bank of any country does not fund agriculture directly, it creates the enabling environment for agriculture or any other sector, identified by government to be promoted with vigour. And, if Jonathan also wants to be sincere with us, he will admit that he had abdicated some of his responsibilities and had allowed Sanusi to do his work for him. The next thing we know the CBN will be equipping the Nigerian Army. Having surrendered part of his duties to Sanusi, without asking where the money came from, the President is an accessory to the charges he has drawn up against the suspended CBN Governor. So, if Sanusi should go home for a few weeks or months, perhaps the President should also go home for the same length of time and hand over to the Vice President. Sounds crazy? Let me quickly explain why it is a novel idea to try. The CBN Act was silent on the matter of suspension; it only addressed removal. Some of the legal luminaries, who endorsed Sanusi’s suspension, had argued that the power to hire and remove includes the power to suspend. I am not a lawyer. But, when reading for my MBA in Boston, USA, the professor taking the course on personnel administration had defined suspension as “temporary removal from the performance of duties assigned” and termination as “permanent removal from performance of duties assigned.” Obviously, suspension, especially an open-dated one, such as was imposed on Sanusi, can be a subtle form of termination. We saw Jonathan adopt this approach in the case of former Justice Salami, when he imposed suspension, illegally, until the man reached retirement age and the issue of reinstatement became academic. The same method had been adopted now in a bid to cover up unconstitutional conduct by a sleight of hands approach, or, what we call wuruwuru to the answer. It is the sort of approach to governance which Nicolo Machiavelli, 1469-1527, would applaud; it is a travesty of justice which should be appalling to decent people everywhere. The end only justifies the means if the means are as noble as the end itself. Just as there is nothing in the CBN Act about suspension, but the President had assumed it, there is also nothing in the Constitution about suspension of the President either. Why can’t the National Assembly also suspend the President and launch a comprehensive inquiry into the accounts of the Federal Government since May 2010? At least, it would answer for us, once for all time, whether the man is worthy of being allowed to go for second term. Or even continue to the end of this tenure. I strongly believe that the President of Nigeria is leading the country into a moral quick-sand by his continuous use of this unfair method of removing people who annoy him and his friends. Has the man forgotten that he will not be 70 by the time he leaves office – even if he wins in 2015. He might live long enough to taste a bit of his own medicine. It was the decree passed into law by former President Obasanjo, slightly amended, which General Abacha later used to nail him. Anybody, still alive, should be careful about the precedents he establishes. History is replete with examples of leaders who purchased the ropes used to hang them.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Mar 2014 08:12:15 +0000
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