Officials of the State Security Service,
SSS, have seized the travelling documents of suspended Governor of the
Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, shortly after he arrived
Lagos from Niger, where he had gone to attend a meeting of governors of
central banks in the West African sub-region.
Shortly after his plane landed at the
ExecuJet Terminal of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in
Lagos, he was accosted by plain clothe operatives who detained him
briefly and insisted he must surrender his passport and
They also insisted that he would not be allowed to leave the airport until the Lagos state director of the SSS arrives.
But after a while, the operatives had a
change of heart after communicating with their superiors. The CBN
governor was allowed to leave but only after his passport was
confiscated.
Eagle Watch had earlier exclusively
reported the plans to arrest Mr. Sanusi on his return to the country
from neighboring Niger.
The governor was suspended in absentia, while attending a three-day meeting of the West African Central Bank Governors.
The embattled governor had himself became aware of the plan to arrest him, compelling him to change his travel plans.
He landed in Lagos instead of Abuja.
In
Lagos, Mr. Sanusi’s associates and friends, led by a former Minister of
the Federal Capital Territory, Nasir El-Rufai, were on hand to receive
him at the airport.
They drove out of the airport in a
convoy heading towards Ikoyi. A member of the delegation said Mr. Sanusi
was heading to a friend’s place to relax.
Earlier today, the President ordered the
immediate suspension of Mr. Sanusi from office, saying his tenure had
been characterized by various acts of financial recklessness and
misconduct inconsistent with the administration’s vision of a Central
Bank propelled by the core values of focused economic management,
prudence, transparency and financial discipline.
However, many Nigerians believe the CBN
governor was axed because he exposed the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation, NNPC, as an harbinger of corruption and financial
mismanagement, diverting huge federal revenues accruing to the nation
from the sale of crude oil.
Mr. Sanusi says as much as $20 billion oil money is missing.
The President, in a statement by Reuben
Abati, his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, ordered the Central
Bank governor to hand over to the most senior Deputy Governor of the
bank, Mrs. Alade who will serve as Acting Governor until the conclusion
of ongoing investigations into alleged breaches of enabling laws, due
process and mandate of the Central Bank.
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