Icheoku is highly alarmed by the decision of Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi's controlled Central Bank of Nigeria to venture into Islamic Banking, so called? What is the need one may ask, of setting up a parallel Islamic banking system in a country that is supposedly secular and already operating a world standardized banking policy; and at this time of great turmoil in the land with Boko Haram murderously trying to forcefully Islamize the whole Nigeria, with other disparate nationalities within the geographical entity vociferously agitating for separatism. It is crass stupidity except that this particular man is not stupid but had carefully chosen this very opportune time to impose his Islamic agenda and/or banking policy on Nigerians for maximum impact.
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Christy 'Apena' Essien-Igbokwe , the wife of Jegede Shokoya of the New Masquerade and Nigeria's lady of songs is dead; she was 51years old. Although her family claimed that "brief Illness" killed her like so many Nigerians; Icheoku retorts that it was most likely AKwa Ibom voodoo and remote control that was used to arrest her. It is on record that she had fallen out with the governor of her native Akwa Ibiom State and have been having a relentless war for political turf with the governor? So who knows whether she was sacrificed to Ekpe cult or even Alusi-Okija as an offal; afterall African science is still very much alive and portent. May her soul rest in peace.
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Islamic banking: FG should curtail Sanusi’s excesses – Fawehinmi
ReplyDeleteBy Bosede Olusola-Obasa
Saturday, 25 Jun 2011
The executive arm of government and the National Assembly have been called upon to supervise the Governor of the Central Bank of N igeria, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, in view of the recent major policies being formulated by him.
A legal practitioner, Mr. Mohammed Fawehinmi, made this call in a statement on Friday, stressing that this step should be taken in the interest of the nation’s economy or it “will wreck our economy and destroy our global financial status as a rich nation.”
He said, “This man is acting ultra-vires and has arrogated too much power many powers to himself, which are not in line with the proper principles of banking. Sanusi is carrying out these powers without supervision from the executive and legislature.”
Emphasising on the issue of the non-interest banking – also called Islamic banking – Fawehinmi said he believed that the action by the CBN governor showed “incredibly bad policy formulation and unnecessary religious sentiment.”
Querying the rationale behind it, he wondered if the idea had the power to curb inflation or positively influence vital areas of the economy.
He said, “What is the relevance of non-interest banking to Nigeria now? Of what benefit is it to our economy? If the Muslims claim they are entitled to Islamic banking, the Christian lay claim to the fact that they are entitled to Christianic banking and the traditional practitioners want traditionalistic banking or Ifa banking or Okija banking, should the CBN readily agree or grant licences to such banks? I think not. The CBN governor has once again missed the goal post. This issue of Islamic banking in disguise must go through the National Assembly.
“I think it shows a lack of cognitive appreciation of the structuring and management of the Nigerian banking system on the part of the CBN governor. I’m forced to state at this juncture of his so-called reforms that he does not appreciate the problems confronting the Nigerian banking industry.
“I strongly believe he has no focus on the pattern of viable and profitable investment quotient needed, which is geared towards the enhancement and improvement of our economy through the effective strengthening of the value of our naira.”
In a statement made available to SATURDAY PUNCH on Friday, Fawehinmi raised a 15-point query.
He called on the Senate President, David Mark, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, to make sure that a bill concerning the non-interest or Islamic banking was brought up on the floor of both chambers and properly scrutinised in the progressive interest of the banking system and the benefit of the entire nation through their representatives there.
Bishop to CBN boss: Your job or Islamic banking
ReplyDeleteFrom NOAH EBIJE, Kaduna
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Chairman, Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), Kaduna State chapter, Bishop David Bakare, has advised Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, to resign from office before advocating the introduction of Islamic banking in the country.
In a statement yesterday in Kaduna, Bishop Bakare said that Sanusi would be better off in the Islamic banking agenda if he (Sanusi) were a religious leader.
The fire-spitting cleric therefore, advised the CBN boss to choose between the idea of Islamic banking and his job at the nation’s apex bank, saying that advocating for a religious banking at this time of political crisis in the country could aggravate the tensed situation.
According to the statement, “Honestly, if Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi had done this advocacy for Islamic banking as a religious leader, it would have made a better sense than as a government official. Therefore, Sanusi should come out and tell the nation whose errand he is running and for who he speaks; is it for himself, Islam, or government of Nigeria?
“The PFN, Kaduna State, strongly condemns the Central Bank governor’s Islamic banking agenda at a time like this in Nigeria when we are still battling to douse the tension created by the last ‘political’ crisis with all the evident religious manifestations.“This obviously is an insensitive and reckless act of the highest order coming from such a high ranking officer of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“No right thinking Nigerian would ordinarily venture into such a sensitive matter at any time in such a nation like Nigeria without an evil motive to create more tension in the nation or worse still to start another religious fighting such as had never been before in this nation.“Somebody, please, help tell Sanusi to let the sleeping dog lie, and not put the nation into another avoidable distraction and dangerous crisis. We call on President Goodluck Jonathan not to wait until trouble begins before acting,” Bishop Bakare said.
We’ll resist attempt to Islamise Nigeria –CAN
ReplyDeleteFrom EMMANUEL OGOIGBE, Warri
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Delta State Chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has said it would resist any attempt to Islamise the country.
The body spoke against the backdrop of the planned introduction of Islamic banking, destruction of churches and killing of Christians, particularly in the northern part of the country.
Addressing a press confrence in Warri at the weekend, the chapter’s chairman, Archbishop God-Do-Well Awomakpa, said the association was prepared to disrupt any move to Islamise the banking sector, just as it was poised to checkmate any attempt to impose Islam on the country.
“It has become increasingly obvious that the Islamic community has stepped up its determination to totally Islamise Nigeria as a nation. This observation is clear from the ongoing efforts to establish Islamic banking in Nigeria through the instrumentality of the Central Bank Governor, Malam Lamido Sanusi,” the cleric stated.
He recalled that some years ago Nigeria was registered as a member of the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) in Saudi Arabia, despite the fact that the country is a multi-religious entity.
“As if that was not enough, Arabic inscriptions were engraved on the naira, which is the Nigerian currency. We must understand that this entity called Nigeria is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society where the constitution unequivocally guarantees freedom of religion and association,” he added.
Citing section 10 of the 1999 Constitution, Awomakpa said it was clearly stated that the Federal Government would neither adopt any religion nor allow the imposition of any religion on itself by any faction of the country.
He also expressed worry over the unnecessary killing of fellow Nigerians in the North, stressing that if the sad development was not checked, it could lead to disintegration of the country.
Lamido Sanusi’s Islamic banking
ReplyDeleteBy Godson Nwa Offoaro
Monday, June 27, 2011
Recently a group of people who go under the banner of ‘Concerned Citizens of Nigeria,’ took a full page paid advert in Daily Sun where it lamented the gradual but steady Islamization of the Central Bank of Nigeria – the CBN.
According to the advert, which was signed by no one, the present leadership of the bank led by Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi has surreptitiously (they did not use the exact word) been implementing policies at the apex bank that run contrary to the Banking and Other Financial Institutions Act (BOFIA) of 1991. In the press advertorial, the group alleges that contrary to the provision of BOFIA, Sanusi and his team have gone ahead to promulgate a “Guideline on Sharia Governance for Non-Interest Financial Institutions in Nigeria. Quote:
“In the first document, the CBN announces that all monetary and financial transactions in Nigeria will be subordinated to the Supreme Sharia Jurisdiction. In the second document, the apex bank provided the framework and requirement for all non-interest banking to be ‘Sharia Compliant’ in their services to be guided by a CBN approved Sharia Advisory Committee (SAC)…” end of partial quote.
It is the last sentence in the above quoted segment of the advert that worries me as it ought to worry any right thinking Nigerian. Before then, Anglican Bishops in Nigeria had issued a statement urging the National Assembly not to recognize Islamic banking in Nigeria. If the allegations made in the advertorial are true, and I have no cause to believe they are not since the CBN has not refuted it, the issues raised should be of worry to all men of goodwill in Nigeria.
Yes, worried because except you are a Moslem, you have nothing to do with the Sharia Advisory Committee on banking set up by the powers that be in a supposedly secular apex banking institution such as the CBN. Except you are a moslem, you will have nothing to do with the interest free banking methods as being proposed by Sanusi’s Islamic banking segment of the CBN.
It quickly drew a flashback in my thinking repertoire when the debate as to whether Lamido Sanusi, considering his religious bent as an egghead saturated with Islamic philosophical thoughts, should be appointed the Governor of the apex bank. Or could it be that the erudite Islamic scholar was drafted by the late Yar’Adua to the CBN for a mission as it now looks like. As of today, most steps already taken by Sanusi since he ascended the lofty throne of the CBN seem to be proving his then “detractors” right.
It could be recalled that when it was time for Yar’Adua to put a northern candidate forward for an opening at Nigeria’s apex bank – the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), he settled for a guy whose near fanatic Islamic leaning was not in doubt. Sanusi’s name popped up persistently and consistently in spite of sustained efforts by those who knew him through his writings and professed near zealotry to scuttle it.
Not even his well documented pro-Islamic ways epitomized by his verses in Islamic prosody which bordered on near fanaticism would deter the determined Yar’Adua to pull Sanusi from the First Bank of Nigeria where he sat at the helms. Yes, the Yar’Adua team still went after him. I had had a premonition that the guy was being sent to the CBN for a predetermined purpose – to go there to do a hatchet job for a predetermined interest group.
Remember, his predecessor, Chukwuma Soludo, had transformed the CBN beyond the imagination and control of its original owners – the Hausa-Fulani and the Islamic faith. Remember, Chukwuma Soludo it was, who deleted the Arabic inscription on the Naira notes and in its place put some discernible Nigerian languages. Now, the Islamic inscriptions are back and the innovative Nigerian languages, which would have been a little legacy of Soludo, have vamoosed.
It takes us back into a certain time in history when Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe was the number 2 citizen of this land. He lost his job because he had publicly queried the propriety that was the decision of the then Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC), led by General Ibrahim Babangida to smuggle Nigeria into the Organization of Islamic Countries – OIC as a full member. It was at a well attended press conference when a reporter threw the question to General IBB and his colleagues regarding the veracity or otherwise of the story then making the rounds that Nigeria had been smuggled into the OIC.
ReplyDeleteThe tale had it that actually, the military head of state with the connivance of others did that without the knowledge and information of Ebitu Ukiwe, the then ceremonial number two citizen of this land. And that a simple retort from Ukiwe to IBB (did we do that?), was what led to his being so unceremoniously relieved of his appointment and in his place Commodore Augustus Aikhomu was quickly packaged and sworn in.
The displacement of Ebitu Ukiwe did not stop the debate. It rather escalated it. Nigeria was supposed to be a secular state. And secularism presupposed neutrality in the execution and or adoption of certain religious behaviors (as official policies) in a multi-religious, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic state and country as wide, as variegated and expansive as Nigeria. But because the ruling Nigerian military men of then behaved as if Nigeria was their war booty, which they had to toy with as they pleased, they formulated and executed policies that titillated the fancy of a favored segment of the citizenry.
In particular, that segment that thought and acted as if the military was there to accomplish a predetermined mission. It was a period when the people’s thoughts were really muzzled and opinion not sought after in the implementation of policies that affected the general good. It was the dark, now better-forgotten days, when the Nigerian press lived in bondage and sometimes, in self imposed gag. And a time when some brave ones made the supreme sacrifice – with their lives! It was a time in our lives when our tongues where tied and the men truly died, because they kept silent in the face of a runaway, blazing tyranny.
One would have thought that era was over, dead, buried and forgotten for good until the man named Mallam Lamido Sanusi, the present Governor of the CBN stepped in with some of his outlandish banking policies. First was his decree designed to overnight turn an essentially primitive (monetary policy wise) agrarian Nigeria society into a cashless society. His decree that a maximum of 150,000 Naira a day was the limit an individual (one million for corporate) customer could withdraw was unrealistic, ill timed, laughable and ridiculous.
At best it was designed to encourage Papa Chuks to stash away his horde of naira notes into a well-sealed underground safe inside his bedroom and an Iya Funmilayo to perpetually tie her wads of trading naira close to her loins. I had squirmed the first time I read about that unworkable policy. But being not a banker, not to talk of knowing a lot of its segment that says it’s bankers’ last resort, I had kept my cool, wondering in subdued soliloquy how the United States which is a quintessential progenitor of cashless society had not completely done away with the withdrawal of large chunks of money from one’s account in a day so long as it does not exceed 10,000 USD.
Mind you, in that same United States, you could withdraw as much as you liked, so long as you informed your bankers in advance and prepared to fill out a form called Currency Transaction Report Form – CTR - (it may not be the real name of the form). That up and until we write, the policy has not changed. So, the question is, if a country as huge and cashless as the United States could have a policy of withdrawing not more than 10,000 dollars (1.6 million Naira) a day per customer, why press Nigeria, a wobbling pretender to economic modernity, into a policy that if implemented would achieve the direct opposite of what it had set out to achieve?
ReplyDeleteWhy the hurry. I had believed that the bow-tie (Allan Greenspan style?) wearing whizz-kid from Kano would first make Nigerians learn to crawl before they run – modern day banking-methods wise. Why the hurry? Who is he trying to impress? Certainly, it is not the economic and or monetary interest of the itinerant Fulani herdsman. Who is he trying to hurt, essentially, the Dugbe, Balogun and Onitsha market mammy? As it now appears, what Sanusi’s mission is at the CBN can’t be reform. It is politics, in favor of Hausa-Fulani Islamic agenda pure and simple.
But, it looks like we can’t get a surfeit of Islam-induced headaches in modern Nigeria: Yesterday it was the election-induced riots which claimed more than 600 lives of innocent Nigerians because a Christian defeated a northern favored Moslem. Today, it is a Boko Haram onslaught from one side and the civilized approach of Mallam Lamido Sanusi and his concerted efforts to Islamize the CBN on the other. While the northern youths and its share of the Nigerian unemployed gangs are the executors of most of the religious crises which origins are northern Nigeria, northern Nigerian Islamic elites are very often, the think tank.
And why is it that the northern leadership sows the seed for religious crises only to step aside and watch the wrath and destruction that often follows, year in and year out? Why do they provide the fodder for religious induced crises? Why do northern elites provide the grooming grounds for the brewing and promulgation of outlandish policies that perpetually keep the nation on its nerves?
For example, it is the northern leadership that will discourage their women from presenting their infants for polio vaccination. It is the northern elite that would promulgate and it is law that landmass instead of population should be the basis for revenue allocation. It is the northern elite that will say, a non-believer (the southern Christian) must not ever rule over a believer (usually a northern Moslem). Wow, in this land of ours, the constitution we now have was written and imposed on us by northern Moslem military oligarchs. Nigeria has a 36 state structure created and imposed on us by northern military oligarch.
Now, whereas the Maitatsine and the Boko Haram have chosen the path of suicide killing and the beheading of fellow Nigerians, Sanusi’s Islamic monetary policies as encapsulated in his new CBN banking policies should not be the final arrow aimed at the heart of the only glue (the CBN) that has held the nation together. Mallam Sanusi should save us the preventable headache that is bound to arise from his skewed, divisive Islamic monetary policies. Other consenting members of this federation have had enough!
Note: This piece had been submitted before news filtered in that Sanusi had capitulated!
Offoaro writes from Havensgate, Owerri. Offoaro@yahoo.com 070 251 61236