By Ikechukwu Amaechi
Muhammadu Sanusi has been let off the anti-corruption hook twice in as many years.
This is not because the Emir of Kano has been adjudged innocent. No! Friends in high places, petrified that he may be consumed by the anti-graft inferno, which embers he helped to stoke, came to his rescue.
Each time I reflect on the fact that Sanusi would rely on the intervention of powerful Nigerians to extricate himself from anti-corruption snares, I marvel at the incredible metaphor of such a gauche strategy.
A recap is germane here. The Kano State Public Complaints and Anti-corruption Commission recently accused Sanusi of misappropriating N3.4 billion between 2014 when he was installed Emir and 2017.
The report accused him of abuse of due process in the award of contracts, financial recklessness and obstruction of investigation, and implied that the Kano Emirate Council lavished unappropriated N1.4 billion and N1.9 billion on personal expenditures.
The Commission alleged that the expenditures contravened Section 120 of the Nigeria Constitution, Section 8 of the Kano State Emirate Council Special Fund Law 2004, Section 314 of the Penal Code, and Section 26 of the Kano State Public Complaints and Anti-Corruption Commission Law 2008.
The Commission also alleged that “based on the available evidence … Sanusi continued to undermine the investigation through various means which include giving instruction to all officers invited for clarification to shun the commission’s invitation.”
It said the acts contravenes “Section 25 of the Commission’s enabling Law 2008 (as amended).”
These, no doubt, are grievous allegations but it was not the first time they would be made.
When the issues came up in 2017, several prominent Nigerians, including Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Generals Ibrahim Babangida, Abdulsalami Abubakar, the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammad Saad Abubakar III, Aliko Dangote, and Aminu Dantata prevailed on Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, to save Sanusi.
Ganduje wrote to the State House of Assembly that was probing the allegations to “temper justice with mercy.”
Ganduje wrote: “There is no gainsaying that … Sunusi has admitted all his faults and mistakes and agreed to make adjustments. I think at this juncture, we should allow peace as has been achieved to continue.”
Sanusi never controverted Ganduje’s claim. But he is not without his courtiers who insist that he is only a victim of his outspokenness.
To be fair, his penchant for “speaking truth to power,” is undeniable. Not even the traditional institution took the sting out of him.
But what is sorely lacking in Sanusi’s personae is the capacity to tell himself the truth. He lacks the discipline to walk his talk, to weigh himself on the same scale of probity with which he weighs others.
So, while those who sympathise with him see his travails from the prism of vendetta, the facts do not lend credence to such insinuation.
What is at issue today just as it was two years ago is corruption. Whatever role Nigeria’s noxious partisan politics is playing is secondary.
The fact which has been carefully put in the public domain by a legitimate authority is that Kano State Emirate Council’s N4.3 billion may have been misappropriated through bogus contracts worth hundreds of millions of naira awarded to Sanusi’s personal aides.
Worse, over N2 billion was allegedly appropriated by him, illegally, as personal expenses.
And rather than helping in the investigations, he allegedly impeded the cause of justice by instigating his aides to ignore summons from the anti-corruption agency.
On June 3, the Commission formally recommended that Sanusi be suspended from office for obstructing financial crime investigations.
Three days later, Ganduje queried Sanusi over the alleged misappropriation of N3.4 billion by the Kano Emirate Council under his watch and gave him 48 hours to respond.
But just as it happened in 2017, Dangote, this time coopting Ekiti State Governor and Chairman of Nigeria Governors Forum, Kayode Fayemi, stepped in again to broker peace.
But this is not all about personality clash between Ganduje and Sanusi. This is an allegation of financial fraud made against one of Nigeria’s most trenchant anti-graft campaigners.
In fact, to say that Sanusi owes his standing in not only the Nigerian society but also the international community to his anti-corruption posturing is to say the obvious.
But it is not enough to pontificate on anti-corruption and deliver flowery speeches around the globe, Sanusi should be able to walk his talk. That he has not done.
For instance, in this case, rather than begging powerful Nigerians to come to his rescue, wouldn’t it have been better for Sanusi to produce the annual financial statement of the Emirate?
Wouldn’t it have been better if, at a time like this, all he needed to do was to publish the audited accounts of the Emirate in a national newspaper to shut up his “detractors?”
But Sanusi cannot do that because he is not the saint he claims to be.
Those who eulogise him pretend to forget that his tenure as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor ended controversially.
Just as the Kano Commission investigated and indicted him, the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRCN) also investigated him and released a damning report on the operations of the CBN under his watch.
The 13-page FRCN report, based on Sanusi’s response to a query by President Goodluck Jonathan in 2013, made very weighty allegations of financial impropriety against him over the bank’s spending.
Jonathan suspended Sanusi based on the findings and recommendations of the FRCN.
Announcing the suspension, Jonathan’s Adviser on Media and Publicity, Reuben Abati, said Sanusi committed acts of financial recklessness and misconduct that were inconsistent with the vision of the CBN.
The FRCN report claimed that Sanusi spent N1.257 billion for lunch for policemen and private guards in 2012, made bogus payments to airlines for currency distribution as well as held an account balance of N1.423 billion for an unidentified customer since 2008.
It also accused him of violating financial regulations and carrying out activities with financial implications not related to the CBN mandate.
Like the Kano anti-graft agency, the FRCN also recommended Sanusi’s suspension.
So, it is déjà vu.
Sanusi got away with the shenanigans then because he was dealing with Jonathan. But there is every reason to believe that despite his public posturing, he has issues with probity and accountability.
Though he portrays himself as the defender of the wretched-of-earth, his ostentatious and flamboyant lifestyle betrays him.
He was once quoted as saying that the two Rolls Royce limousines he uses were given to him as gifts, while his friends in the banking sector provided the private jet he uses for foreign and local travels.
That may well be true. But for a traditional ruler who superintends over the affairs of a domain with some of the world’s poorest people, such ostentatiousness flies in the face of decency and common sense.
Sanusi may well survive this latest round of financial scandal as he did under Jonathan. But one thing is clear, his ability to turn the tables against his accusers using the anti-corruption bogey is grossly diminished.
Yes, Ganduje is not himself an exemplar of probity in public office, but even those who want him out of office are beginning to ask the very innocuous question: Why not Sanusi also?