Expdonaloaded News; Still on Sanusi’s $20bn red herring

Nigeria is an inimitable country that confounds many uninformed observers; a place where what it takes to be a hero and anti-cor­ruption czar is simply to be out of govern­ment and ability to master the inelegant craft of mud throwing.

That explains why those that were in government yesterday simply become saints while those in office today are the villains. In any other country where citi­zens are given to moral introspection and solipsism, this should not be so because the verdict of history is not a product of the brain wave of those adroit at hawking mischief.
It is also because of the realisation that the inscrutable lessons of history are often lost in the miasma of political subterfuge that those who live in glass houses in Nigeria are never circumspect in throwing stones. The country is like a mad house where those who shout the loudest get the most attention.
And that explains why the latest intervention of the former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, who is now the Emir of Kano, Lamido Sanusi, in the recent audit report by PricewaterhouseC­oopers (PwC), on the alleged missing $20 billion oil money did not come as a sur­prise to many. If anything, it is, to borrow a cliché, true to character. It is in Sanusi’s character to seek attention and public adulation by sleight of the hand. It is in his nature to divert public scrutiny from himself by throwing mud at others.
It was Sanusi who stirred the axiomatic hornets’ nest when he wrote to President Goodluck Jonathan in 2014 alleging that from January 2012 to July 2013, NNPC had lifted $65 billion worth of crude oil on behalf of the Federal Government but remitted only $15.2 billion into the Federation Accounts, with $49.8 billion as outstanding.post by expdonaloaded.blogspot.com..Expectedly, there was huge outcry and even when Sanusi unilaterally reduced the amount to $12 billion and later $20 bil­lion, becoming pitiably inconsistent in his self-serving advocacy, the noise refused to quieten.And to get to the root of the matter and to prove that it had nothing to hide, the Federal Government, through the Office of the Auditor General for the Federation (AuGF) engaged PricewaterhouseCoopers Limited (PwC) to investigate any and all crude oil revenues generated by the NNPC that was withheld or unremitted to the Federation Accounts between January 1, 2012 and July 31, 2013.
The primary goal of the audit was to determine if a whopping $20 billion of the country’s patrimony had been misappro­priated. If yes, how, and by whom?
But the audit firm came up with the ver­dict that only $1.48 billion was actually unaccounted for and recommended that NNPC should remit the money to the fed­eration account. In any other country, that should have ended the matter since it has been established that no money was stolen and the minister said arrangements had been made for the money to be remitted.
But this is Nigeria. The allegation itself was an agenda setting and that is why all manner of hideous characters are baying for petroleum minister, Diezani Alison- Madueke’s blood. The issue is far bigger than the purported quest for transparency in governance. It is a web of conspiracy, which sole purpose is to demonize not only the minister but also the entire Jona­than administration.
That is why, all of a sudden, everyone seems to have forgotten that the issue that led to the probe was alleged missing $20 billion and that the report categorically stated that no such money was missing. That also explains why unless a guilty verdict is returned, those behind the alle­gation will not accept the report no-matter the integrity of the firm that carried out the audit.
Not patient enough to wait for the President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari, who has vowed to revisit the case when he takes over power, a vow that was made after the self-same Sanusi paid him a courtesy visit, the Emir has taken it upon himself to interpret the PwC report to suit his own whims and caprices.
In an article entitled, “Unanswered questions on Nigeria’s missing oil revenue billions,” published in the Financial Times of London, the monarch faulted Alison- Madueke’s position, which in any case is the position of many dispassionate observers, that the report had exonerated the Nigerian National Petroleum Corpora­tion, NNPC, earlier accused of diverting the money.
“Contrary to the claims of petroleum minister Diezani Alison-Madueke, the audit report does not exonerate the NNPC. It establishes that the gap between the company’s oil revenues between January 2012 and July 2013 and cash remitted to the government for the same period was $18.5 billion,” he wrote. And you wonder which report Sanusi was actually talk­ing about. Is it the one already in public domain?
So, it is no longer $20 billion, not to talk of $49 billion that was missing? Of course, the former CBN governor’s narra­tive will always change depending on the audience he is addressing.
The ex-central banker said of the new figure of $18.5 billion in revenues, which he still claimed that the state oil company did not send to the government, “about $12.5 billion appears by my calculations to have been diverted”, stressing that “this relates only to a random 19-month period, not the five-year term of Mr. Jonathan, the outgoing president.”
He then disingenuously linked his sus­pension from office last year by President Jonathan to his whistle blowing saga. But truth be told, Sanusi only deftly used the allegation as a red herring to cover his own financial malfeasance in the CBN, which had been uncovered prior to the orchestrated NNPC saga.
Sanusi concluded that the only thing left to be done was for the authority to hold anyone found culpable in the transactions accountable and commence legal proceed­ings against them since, in his words, “Nigerians did not vote for an amnesty for anyone.”
Of course, every well-meaning Nigerian will subscribe to the idea that whoever breaches the country’s laws should be sanctioned no-matter how highly placed. That is the only way the country will join the league of civilized nations, societies governed by law and institutions rather than strong men. But that can never be achieved on the altar of vendetta, which is clearly what Sanusi intends to achieve through his crusade.
If there was no hidden agenda, Sanusi should have waited for Buhari who, not­withstanding the outcome of the PwC au­dit report, said he would revisit the matter. Rather than deliberately and maliciously skewing the report to achieve a predeter­mined goal, which is to paint the outgoing regime as the poster boy of corruption in Nigeria, Sanusi should have waited to see how different a new audit report will be from the extant one.
Anyone who reads Sanusi’s article will think that the NNPC was set up by the Jonathan government. Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth.
One of the major recommendations of the PwC audit report was, “the NNPC model of operation must be urgently reviewed and restructured, as the current model which has been in operation since the creation of the Corporation cannot be sustained.” And many Nigerians agree with the submission. The years that the locusts ate in the corporation included the years when Buhari was oil minister in the first coming of General Olusegun Obasan­jo as a military head of state, as well as Buhari’s 20-month stint as military leader and Obasanjo’s eight-year presidency.
So, the malfeasance at the corporation dates back to its early days. If anything, the Jonathan administration can even be said to have had the courage to audit the accounts of the NNPC. When was the last time the accounts of NNPC audited? Not even once was it audited in the eight years that Obasanjo not only held sway as the president but was also the de factor petroleum minister.
Yet, these are people claiming to stand on moral high ground in this matter.
He who comes to equity must do so with clean hands. The extant audit was to address the issue of missing $20 billion. If Buhari wants to be taken seriously, he should audit the accounts of NNPC right from inception. But if that will not suf­fice, and I don’t see why it shouldn’t, he should, at least, audit the accounts from May 29, 1999 when the Fourth Republic came into being.
I can bet that if such an audit is done, Nigerians will find out that President Jonathan is really a saint. And that Die­zani’s real crime is that she stepped on big toes in her desire to sanitise an industry that over the years has become the bastion of slush funds for all manner of characters masquerading as national leaders
Another fallacy, which Sanusi is trying duplicitously to hoist on the totem pole of credulity, is the assertion that he was suspended because he blew the lid on the alleged NNPC missing funds. That is a lie from the pit of hell. In truth, the opposite is the case. The government was the first to query Sanusi over his financial impro­prieties at the CBN. When he could not explain them, he went on the offensive by making public statements about missing monies at NNPC.
The financial atrocities in the CBN under Sanusi are simply outrageous. Investigating the apex bank in April 2013, the Financial Reporting Council of Nige­ria (FRC) discovered that N38.23 billion was missing. The money was said to have been paid to MINT- a subsidiary of the CBN. However, MINT accounts showed no such money was received.
It is only in Nigeria that you can have a Central Bank governor spend government money anyhow at his own discretion. Sanusi did not just spend a few thousand naira whimsically. He did not just give away millions of naira. He gave away bil­lions. The government reveals that Sanusi gave away nothing less than N163 billion in no less than 63 “intervention projects” in different parts of the country.
In its 2011 account under “sundries” (i.e. unexplained expenses), Sanusi’s CBN reported an expenditure of N1.1 billion. For legal and professional fees that same year, it claimed to have spent an amaz­ing N20 billion. This is simply mind-boggling. These are just crooked details designed to mask the massive corruption and graft under Sanusi’s watch.
Yet, this is the same man that is busy throwing stones at other people. Can the incoming government, an ally of Sanusi, hire an internationally acclaimed audit firm to audit the finances of the CBN under Sanusi’s watch, just as Jonathan did to NNPC?
In a shark-infested public space like Ni­geria’s, character assassination is consid­ered a legitimate weapon of war. And the more vicious the attacks, the better for the purveyors. The tendency, which Sanusi and his co-travellers on the boulevard of falsehood represent have ascended the throne. And these characters neither take prisoners nor play by the rules. And they have no conscience.
But no matter how far falsehood travels, it is only a matter of time before truth catches up with it. Nigerians and indeed, the international community will know the truth sooner than later.

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