By CHIDI OBINECHE
“This country, this race, and this life produced me . . . and I shall express myself as I am”.
–James Joyce. ‘Portrait of an artist as a young man’.
for Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, SLS, erstwhile governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN and reigning Emir of Kano, the epigram above aptly illustrates him in full trajectory. From his days in school, through the banking industry, he had almost always exhibited a penchant for brashness and unpredictability. Even in plum positions that demand settled habits of guarded pro- establishment order, he would always step out of line in obedience to his conscience. Such behaviours that seem to bear cockiness have often thrown people off- balance, and compelled them to wear themselves out trying to explain his moves. Taken to an extreme, this conduct can intimidate and terrorize.
He demonstrates on a day-to-day basis, that scrambling your patterns will cause a stir around you and stimulate interest. People will talk about you; ascribe motives and explanations that have nothing to do with the truth. In the end, the more capricious you appear, the more respect you will garner. As CBN governor, he stirred enough water to rock the boat as he stridently accused the Goodluck Jonathan government of massive looting and corruption. Dramatically, he got suspended from office with the opposition All Progressives Congress, APC, rallying round him.
Despite all odds, he became the Emir of Kano and deepened his romance with the APC that came to power partly on the wings of his thumbs down of Jonathan’s regime. But his altruistic fire eating nature will not rest. Last week, he dealt a crushing blow to his new friends in power in what literally took the wind off their sails, warning them against the danger of ending up like Jonathan.
The sucker punch came with the straight-laced words that is vintage Sanusi; “The bottom line is that if your policy is wrong, it means you must change it and nothing will make it right as it has to be changed.” Reminding President Buhari of his settled habit, he said: “ I will neither change nor be political by telling people what they want to hear. The truth is that there is nothing we are facing today that we did not know will happen. We made mistakes, many of them deliberate; we ignored every single warning…. We should not just keep blaming the previous administration; we also made some mistakes in the current administration.”
Emir Muhammadu Sanusi 11 (Sanusi Lamido Sanusi) was born into the Fulani Torodbe (Suiiubawa) clan of Kano on 31st July1961. He was crowned on June 8, 2014 as the Emir of Kano, succeeding his late grand uncle Dr Ado Bayero. He was appointed on June 3, 2009 as the governor of the Central Bank for a five year term, but was suspended from office on February 20, 2014 after exposing a $20billion fraud committed by the president’s associates in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC. Sanusi is the grandson of Muhammadu Sanusi (the 11th Fulani Emir of Kano). He is a ranking Fulani noble man and respected Islamic scholar.
The global financial intelligence magazine, The Banker, published by the Financial Times, conferred on Sanusi two awards, the global award for Central Bank Governor of the year, as well as for Central Bank Governor of the year for Africa. The TIME magazine also listed Sanusi in its TIMES 100 list of most influential people of 2011.
He is the direct son of Muhammadu Sanusi, a career diplomat and technocrat who served as Nigeria’s Ambassador to Belgium, China, and Canada , and who later became the permanent secretary of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He had his primary education at St Anne’s Catholic Primary School, Kakuri, Kaduna, his secondary education at King’s College Lagos. He attended the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Economics in 1981. He later obtained a Master’s degree in Economics in 1983 from the same institution, and became an instructor there.
He also studied at the International University of Africa, Khartoun, Sudan, where he obtained a degree in Islamic Law. In 1985 he was employed by ICON Limited (Merchant Bankers). He later joined United Bank for Africa, UBA and rose to the position of General Manager. In 2005, he joined First Bank of Nigeria as Executive Director, and later became the Managing Director, CEO in January 2009.