Emir Sanusi replies Falana, says he is ready to be probed

Following calls by Femi Falana (SAN) for the federal government to probe Emir Lamido Sanusi over diversion of funds, the former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has made himself available for questioning. Falana had earlier said that Sanusi and another former governor of the CBN, professor Chukwuma Soludo must be probed over their alleged involvement in the diversion of public funds. And the Emir of Kano, according to Premium Times, has replied the human rights lawyer, stating emphatically that he is always available to be probed by the anti-graft agency. “The Central Bank does not pay and has never paid subsidy to marketers and the only circumstance this would happen is the Central Bank acting as banker to Government and carrying out instructions to make payments from Government accounts.

“There is absolutely no circumstance under which the CBN would have disbursed its own money for payment of subsidy or disbursed money on behalf of Government without authorization,” the Kano Emir said on the allegations about fuel subsidy. He stated further, that the CBN was at the “forefront of the effort to expose the corruption in the subsidy regime and put a stop to it,” adding that the allegation on bank bailouts was “strange”.

Speaking further, Sanusi said: “The money was not given to bank shareholders and management but was provided to ensure that ordinary Nigerians and other depositors who kept their money in banks did not lose their savings as a result of the mismanagement of these banks and bad loans. “The money remains a loan to those banks and is to be repaid from a combination of sources over the years. These include sale of collateral backing non-performing loans held by AMCON, recovery of those loans, sale of share of the banks held by AMCON and a sinking fund into which all banks are to make annual contributions.

“This will continue no matter how long it takes until the banking industry repays all amounts due to AMCON and the bondholders are repaid. “All of this is in line with the law setting up AMCON and the purpose of setting it up in the first place. “The resolution of the Nigerian banking crisis and the AMCON model are actually being held up as an example of how to deal with severe and systemic banking crisis. Not a single depositor in any Nigerian bank lost a single kobo due precisely to these arrangements.

” Recently, the incumbent CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele blamed his two predecessors for Nigeria’s foreign exchange crisis. According to Emefiele, the current forex crisis would have been averted if the duo had not adopted measures that resulted in the depletion of the country’s foreign reserves. The Nigerian currency has collapsed and output is set to shrink this year for the first time since 1991 after 8 percent-plus growth through the 2000s. Professor Soludo was the CBN governor between May 29, 2004 to May 29, 2009 while Sanusi was in office between June 3, 2009 to June 2, 2014.