The
Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Mallam Lamido Sanusi, on Wednesday
fired back at those calling for his removal, saying they missed the
point.
The
CBN governor said his removal would not change the political structure
of the country which he said could not guarantee economic development in
its current form.
“So
if you sack the Governor of Central Bank, does it change anything? It
is not the solution; the solution is to face this reality,” Sanusi said
at the financial regulators forum debate at the 18th edition of the
Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja. He insisted that the country had a
bloated recurrent expenditure.
Sanusi
had stirred the hornet’s nest recently when he called for the sack of
50 per cent of federal workers at the Annual Capital Market Retreat in
Warri, Delta State.
He
had said 70 per cent of the country’s earnings was being consumed by
federal appointees, and stressed that cutting the workforce by half
would assist in reviving the national economy.
Sanusi
had consequently come under criticisms from many groups and individuals
with the Nigeria Labour Congress president, Abdulwahed Omar, accusing
him of always making major pronouncements to pursue anti-people
policies.
But Sanusi at the debate on Wednesday said he was being pummelled for saying what would help the country’s development.
At
the debate were the Director General, Securities and Exchange
Commission, Ms Arunmah Oteh; Director General, National Pension
Commission, Mr. Muhammad Ahmad; and Managing Director, Financial
Derivatives Company Limited, Mr. Bismarck Rewane, among others.
The
CBN governor said, “People say everything is about politics and let us
go to the politics of it. For those of you who were in Warri, this is a
country where we have 774 local government councils. In each council you
have a chairman and a vice-chairman and maybe 10 councillors and some
other aides.
“Take
a state like Kano which used to be one state. But now it is Kano and
Jigawa. When it was one state where you had one governor and maybe nine
or 10 commissioners, I went to King’s College and Ahmadu Bello
University on Kano State government scholarship. My parents didn’t pay, I
was in King’s College and the state government even paid for my rail
ticket from Lagos to Kano and back and I wasn’t the only one.
“Now
what do you have? That one state has become two states, two governors,
two deputy governors, 40 commissioners, maybe 80 legislators and only
God knows how many special advisers and assistants they have.
“This
is not about NLC or Trade Union Congress or the President or the
National Assembly, but it is about us as a country deciding whether this
constitution that we have chosen makes sense.”
He
said the Nigerian constitution which made it compulsory that each state
must have a minister had also contributed to the problem of the
country, adding that no meaningful development would be made unless the
problem was looked at critically.
He
said, “The constitution says that there must be a minister from every
state of the federation. Let me ask you, as intelligent and as educated
human beings, what is the connection between the number of states and
the number of ministries at the federal level.
“We
are talking about federal character, so if you have 50 states today,
must we have 50 ministries, if we have a 100 states must we have 100
ministries?
“I
want to understand so if we create a state for the South-East since
they say they want one more state, and then you must have one more
minister and create a ministry even if we don’t need it. So because you
have created one more state, the Federal Government must have a minister
from that state.”
He
pointed out that with the way political appointments were made in the
country, it would be difficult for the people to remember who headed
what ministry in the past.
Sanusi
said, “Let us be realistic, between 1999 and now how many ministers
have we had? You have 42, you do cabinet reshuffle and bring in another
42 and I am sure between 1999 and now we have had more than 200
ministers and how many of them can we really remember.
“Just
to give you an idea of how ridiculous this is, if I ask you to name
between 1999 and now the Nigerians who have been ministers how many can
you remember? Why? Because they are so many and their jobs are so poorly
defined and you cannot remember what they did because the only way to
remember a man is based on what he did.”
He said political issues such as the federal character principle which had occupied the place of merit needed to be addressed.
“We
cannot develop if government is spending 70 per cent of the nation’s
revenue on itself and spending 30 per cent on the people. Is that a
sensible situation?” Sanusi queried.
He
said rather than calling for his sack the issue of bloated recurrent
expenditure should be looked into, adding that no country in Africa used
Nigeria’s political model because of its expensive nature.
Punch Nigeria
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