Sanusi’s Not A Whistle Blower – Maku

labaran_makuThe Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, on Tuesday said that it is wrong for anyone to describe the suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi as a ‘whistle blower’.

Maku, who made this known at the National Assembly complex after defending the 2014 budget of his ministry, noted that no governor of any country’s apex bank could act as a whistle blower and blamed the development on ‘negative reports’ from the media.

The minister maintained that President Goodluck Jonathan did not query Sanusi because he raised concerns about the alleged missing $20 billion in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

He said, “Sanusi is not a whistle blower by governor of Central Bank of Nigeria. That perception is fed by negative reports from the media.

“I have not heard in any nation where the central bank governor is a whistle blower. He is the manager of the nation’s monetary policies as an adviser to the President of Nigeria on those issues. So the fact that he has moved from being the CBN governor to whistle blowing is a problem in itself.

“But the reality of what has happened is that there are issues with the account of CBN of 2012 as the President explained.

“The Financial Reporting Council has said that there are issues that should be addressed so the President returned it back to the council and the council again returned it with some of the items with questions.

“CBN is the nerve centre of the nation’s financial system, if there are problems with it, it means that it can generate a lot of problems in the banking system and the economy and so the President has been trying to sort this out and between him and the CBN governor, there have been communications since April 2013. So it has nothing to do with what my brother Sanusi had said relating to the NNPC. There had been ongoing conversation between them.

“Unfortunately the CBN governor is also the chairman of the board and he can’t sit in a matter he is being investigated for.

“So what the President has done by appointing officer of the CBN was to ask the governor to step aside pending the outcome of the investigation.

“Are we saying that the queries that were raised relating to the CBN account were false?

“In the end if he is found not guilty he still has his tenure to run”.

1 COMMENT

  1. Some time you wonder what this politicians think of Nigerians, if we want to play tricks is better we advance to a level where leakage is not possible. You suspends somebody and you submitted name for replacement and now you are telling the world that he was ask to step aside to allow investigation.it means we are acting on the report and it out comes even before the investigation, and this are the kind of issues that poses questions about the credibilities as a nation !!!