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| Lamido Sanusi |
Nigeria’s
Central Bank Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, who has just been
suspended with immediate effect by President Goodluck Jonathan, has been
away on official assignment to Niger and might be arrested on arrival
at the airport, PREMIUM TIMES can report.
Usually reliable security sources say
there are already plans to arrest Mr. Sanusi, when he arrives back at
the airport in Abuja, in a bid to stop him from contesting or
challenging the presidential directive to stay away from his office.
The governor was suspended in absentia, while attending a three-day meeting of the West African Central Bank Governors.
Our sources say the embattled governor has been hinted by administration insiders, and has now changed his travel plans.
He will now land in Lagos instead of Abuja.
In Lagos, Mr. Sanusi’s associates and
friends, led by a former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory,
Nasir El-Rufai, are organising to receive him at the airport and block
any attempt to arrest him.
Our sources at the Central Bank said Mr.
Sanusi is also in company of other Central Bank Officials, including
Sarah Alade, the highest ranking Deputy Governor of the regulatory body,
whom the president ordered he hands over to.
The Nigeria police as well as well as
the Department of State Services, DSS, are yet to comment on the plans
to arrest Mr. Sanusi.
The spokesperson of the police, Frank
Mba, is said to be in a meeting when our reporter called his office
while Marilyn Ogar of the DSS said she was keeping a doctor’s
appointment.
Earlier today, the President ordered the
immediate suspension of Mr. Sanusi from office, saying his tenure had
been characterized by various acts of financial recklessness and
misconduct inconsistent with the administration’s vision of a Central
Bank propelled by the core values of focused economic management,
prudence, transparency and financial discipline.
However, many Nigerians believe the CBN
governor was axed because he exposed the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation, NNPC, as an harbinger of corruption and financial
mismanagement, diverting huge federal revenues accruing to the nation
from the sale of crude oil.
Mr. Sanusi says as much as $20 billion oil money is missing.
The President, in a statement by Reuben
Abati, his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, ordered the Central
Bank governor to hand over to the most senior Deputy Governor of the
bank, Mrs. Alade who will serve as Acting Governor until the conclusion
of ongoing investigations into alleged breaches of enabling laws, due
process and mandate of the Central Bank.
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