By Paul Onomuakpokpo
With the abrupt termination of the
probe of Emir of Kano, Mallam Muhammad Sanusi 11, we have been denied the
opportunity to witness a shamefaced confirmation or a smug rebuttal of the
allegation of financial sleaze against him. Is the allegation that he mismanaged
N6 billion of his emirate a mere canard peddled to sully his hard-earned
reputation? This remains unresolved. It was the Kano State Public Complaints
and Anti-corruption Commission that first started a probe of Sanusi before the
state House of Assembly launched an investigation into the same matter.
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| *Emir Sanusi |
The investigations were provoked by his trenchant
criticism of the northern establishment. He drew the ire of his highly
conservative leaders when he accused Zamfara State Governor Abdulaziz Yari of
not only failing to take action to check the outbreak of meningitis but for
regarding the affliction as a direct comeuppance for his people’s violation of
divine stipulations against fornication and adultery.
It is by no means a surprise that Sanusi has been embroiled
in another controversy. For him, controversy is a veritable staple of life.
Therefore, if controversy does not come on its own, Sanusi courts it with
aplomb. Then the approbation follows. He is seen as one of the enlightened
people from the north who could speak truth to power. It was a controversy that
he triggered by accusing the Goodluck Jonathan government of corruption that
led to his removal as Central Bank governor.
But
whether this controversial streak would be excised with the way the
investigation by the state House of Assembly has been terminated would be seen
in the days ahead. It was reported that Sanusi apologised to his state Governor
Abdullahi Ganduje and that prominent citizens including Acting President Yemi
Osinbajo, former Heads of State Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar, the
Sultan of Sokoto Sa’adu Abubakar and billionaire businessman Aliko Dangote
begged for Sanusi. It was on the basis of this that the governor wrote to the
state House of Assembly pleading with it to stop the probe of Sanusi.
The probe was stopped obviously to avoid embarrassing
Sanusi. But the many questions left unanswered with the termination of the
probe have not stopped the reputation of Sanusi from being tarnished. Or, if
Sanusi had nothing to hide about his financial dealings why did he apologise?
Worse still, those who begged for him willingly took their reputations to the
slaughter slab.
Let’s take Osinbajo for example. Why should the acting
president who ought to defend transparency in a government that claims to
loathe corruption be the one that would shield a suspected corrupt person from
being probed? By this singular action, Osinbajo has lost his right to champion
any anti-corruption fight. The action of Osinbajo shows that in the country,
there are no laws that prohibit corruption. Or, if such laws exist they are
meant only for the mere mortals of the country and not super humans like Sanusi
in their royal immunity.
The aborted probe thus gives an insight into everything
that is wrong about the nation. There is no development because of double
standard. There are two sets of laws: one for the rich while the other is for
the poor. This is why while our leaders preach transparency, they do everything
that breeds corruption. They preach unity, but they do everything that causes
disunity. They see some people as their own while others are not. This was why
President Muhammadu Buhari considered some people in a section of the country
as those he would neglect because they did not give him as many votes as
others. Buhari has also demonstrated this scant regard for the unity of the
nation by giving a bulk of positions in the country to people from his northern
region. He continues in this trajectory despite the criticism that greeted
his making all security positions to be filled by northerners; he has, for instance, filled
the Department of State Services with people from his northern part of the
country.
Again, the double standard is seen in the fact that while
the poor citizen can go to jail for stealing a mobile phone, those who steal
billions are allowed to go untried or they are taken through a travestied
prosecution before they are released under the guise of a plea bargain. This is
why a man is being tried for naming his dog Buhari while thieves who have
ruined the economy are allowed to go home.
We must equally note how the past of the nation stalks its
presence and future. Of course, we do not seek a total hiatus between the past
and the present in a people’s life. There should be a certain complementarity
of the past and the present for an even development. In this case, there are
some lessons to be learnt from the past; there are some noble values to be taken
from the past to the present and the future. But when we look back and see only
wasted opportunities, the architects of that wasteful past should not be
allowed to shape the present and the future. For in their intervening in the
affairs of the present and the future, they can only seek to corrupt them with
their values of the past. Now, can we say that the intervention of Babangida in
the Sanusi saga is for the good of the nation? Has he not tried to make the
values of the corrupt era he superintended to afflict the present?
Sanusi
cannot claim to be an exemplar of a higher and better way of life while he is
still being allegedly bogged down by corruption. After all, it was the same
Sanusi who took banks from their owners after accusing them of corruption. If
Sanusi is corrupt, does it mean that the policies and decisions he took as the
nation’s CBN governor were underwritten by a corrupt template of action? Does
he preach one thing and do the opposite? Is Sanusi living a double life when he
hectors the northern establishment about the danger of early marriage and the
lack of the education of the girl-child and boasts about the self-assurance of
his daughters but goes ahead to marry an 18-year-old teenager as his fourth
wife ? So just stopping the probe is not the best response to the situation of
Sanusi. The probe must continue for the public to know the truth.
For the suspension of the probe can only leave the
impression that Sanusi is using the billions of the emirate to live a life of
grandeur while all the bulk of his people need are just education and the
necessities of life.
Ultimately, there is the need to abolish the traditional
institution with its many parasites who live lavishly on the people’s
commonwealth. It is not enough that there are no roles for traditional rulers
in the constitution; they should not be recognised at all as part of our life.
They belong to an antediluvian era that has no relevance to modern existence.
Or, do they really guarantee peace and development in their communities when
right under their noses, carnage, rape, kidnapping and grinding poverty are
plaguing their people? Those who are enamoured of that past and who want to
recover it are free to do that at their own expense. The monarchs are free to
luxuriate in royal splendour marked by Rolls Royce and private jets as long as
they work for their money. But these ogres and their sybaritic lifestyles must
not be sustained on the back of the suffering citizens.
*Dr. Onomuakpokpo is on the Editorial Board of The Guardian
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