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| Defiant Sanusi Lamido Sanusi |
President Asks Sanusi to Resign over Leaked $49.8bn Letter
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Sanusi Lamido
Sanusi, has told President Goodluck Jonathan that he would not resign on the
ground that he allegedly leaked his letter on the unremitted $49.8 billion oil
revenue to the Federation Account, THISDAY has reported.
The presidency is accusing Sanusi of leaking the memo he
wrote to Mr. Jonathan to former President, Olusegun Obasanjo.
But Sanusi has strongly denied, saying he cannot be held responsible
for a ‘crime’ he did not commit.
To this end, the CBN governor reportedly rejected the
President’s order during a heated telephone conversation, saying he could only
be removed by two-third of the Senate as required by the law.
The president, DailyPost gathered, had called Sanusi and
accused him of leaking the letter to Obasanjo, which the latter used as an
allegation in his letter titled: “Before It is Too Late”.
Jonathan, was said to have asked Sanusi, whose terminal
leave begins in March, to tender his resignation before the close of business
last Tuesday.
In defense, the Apex bank chief told the president that the
letter was available in the presidential villa, the Finance Ministry as well as
the Central Bank, wondering how he (Sanusi) could have leaked the letter when
any other government official or civil servant could have forwarded the letter
to Obasanjo.
Sanusi also expressed his surprise that he was the one being
asked to resign, instead of the president to ask those responsible for the
non-remittance of the funds to resign.
He further informed the president that as the federal
government’s Chief Economic Adviser, mandatorily required to bring issues of
critical economic importance to the attention of the president, he had done a
patriotic duty to his country.
“He informed the President that it is necessary to deal with
the issues and not the letter that had been leaked since it has since been
established that it was not $49.8 billion that had not been remitted to the
Federation Account, but $10.8 billion, which was still in dispute and by any
stretch of imagination was still a large sum.
“Sanusi felt he was being forced out for doing his patriotic
duty to his country by drawing attention to the unaccounted funds. He only has
two months to go, so this was a ploy to force him out and destroy his career
and reputation.
“He knew this and for this reason, refused to throw in the
towel as requested by the president,” a source familiar with the conversation
said.
But the insistence of the president on Sanusi’s resignation
has made him brief his close aides at the CBN and family members.
This, it was learnt, is to protect himself considering the
consequence of defying the direct order of the president.
Recall that Sanusi had written to the president in
September, informing him that, among other issues, the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had not remitted $49.8 billion of oil revenue to
the Federation Account over a 19-month period.
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