Despite brutal questioning by a Senate select committee, Central Bank governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, yesterday stood by his comments that the National Assembly’s budget for overhead is 25.4% of the nation’s total..
Mr Sanusi withstood strong attempts to browbeat him into admitting that the figures were at least lower than that, or that he was misquoted by the media.
The public hearing convened by the Senate followed newspaper publications quoting the Central Bank governor as saying that the nation spends one-quarter of its funds on running the National Assembly, and a subsequent publication quoting the finance minster as saying he would cut the budgetary allocation to the assembly.
Mr Sanusi had at a lecture delivered at the eighth convocation of the Igbinedion University , Okada, Edo State, said 25% of the nation’s resources are spent on the lawmakers. This annoyed the Senators who ordered him to appear before them and defend his statement.
The Central Bank governor appeared on Wednesday before the Senate committee alongside the finance minister, Olusegun Aganga. However, unlike the finance minister who quickly dissociated himself from the statement that he intended cutting allocation to the assembly, Mr. Sanusi admitted saying that 25.4% of the nation’s overhead cost is spent on the National Assembly...
He held his grounds, backing his statements with records from other national dailies which quoted him correctly, and with statistics from the budget office.
Mr. Aganga who later assumed the role of an umpire told the Senators that the CBN governor’s figures were correct although they may appear wrong in another context.
The minister argued that overhead cost figures which include Service Wide Votes (money spent on maintenance of government facilities), are as legitimate those which do not include the votes.
Rage
Evidently angry, Iyiola Omisore (PDP Osun State) who led the Senate panel alleged that the CBN governor had chosen to deliberately incite Nigerians against the Assembly. He asked Mr. Aganga to state categorically whether Mr. Sanusi’s statement was right or wrong. The minister again said the statement depends on context or the way one chooses to use statistics.
Members of the Senate panel made up of four different committees could not hold back their rage against the unyielding CBN governor and frequently compared him to the more amenable finance minister, trying to coax him into some form of apology.
The Senators made no effort to hide their bias and blatantly refused to give any room to the Central Bank governor, to defend his figures and the context in which they were used.
Mr. Omisore pointedly told the harassed CBN governor at one point that the committee was not prepared to listen to him and that he must direct his responses through the finance minister. Mr Sanusi, however, occasionally barged in to make the point that his figures were right and that he got them from the director of budget’s office.
No apology
He said he would only apologise if the figures from the budget office were wrong. He insisted that, “Total Federal Government Overhead is over N500 billion and the Overhead of the National Assembly is N136.2 billion. This is exactly 25.1 per cent of total government overhead. I am quoting from the figure I got from the Budget Office. If you like, you can invite the Director-General of the Budget Office.’’ When told by Mr. Omisore, who is the Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation, that the figure was wrong following a clarification by the Minister of Finance, Mr. Sanusi replied: “I don’t know where the minister got his figures.” To the calls on him to apologise, he said, “By my nature, if I do not believe that I am wrong, I do not apologise.” He urged the Senators to examine the context under which he made his statement which was actually in a lecture about factors that fuel inflationary trends.
Staking his job
After hours of fruitless attempts to get the CBN governor to admit wrongdoing and apologise to the Senators, the lawmakers seemed to deviate from the matter and begin to question the character of the governor and the annual budget of the CBN.
“We really need to be sure that the CBN governor has the character to stay in that office,” Heineken Lokpobiri (PDP Bayelsa State) said.
Other Senators took turns to tongue lash the CBN governor. They accused him of speaking too much and asked him questions like “do you enjoy your job? Do you feel like quitting?’’ And if he thinks democracy is too expensive.
“My name is Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, (my name is) not Central Bank Governor. I enjoy my job but if you want me to quit, I will honourably quit,” Mr Sanusi replied before a cheering crowd of spectators.
The unwavering Central Bank governor told the Senators that the survival of democracy is dependent on allowing people the freedom to speak. He added that he had always been involved in the fight for democracy way back to the time of June 12 and that even if the military takes over now, he will still fight them off.
The issue remained unresolved as both sides disagreed with each other’s figures. However, Mr. Omisore gave the CBN governor a stern warning not to use such figures in comments about the National Assembly anymore.
Mr. Sanusi is also expected to appear before the entire House of Representatives today to defend his statement.
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