Oil Cabal Shared Missing $20Bn, Sanusi Tells New York Times

Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, ousted governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has told New York Times that the $20 billion he accused the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) of not remitting was actually shared by a powerful cabal close to government, ahead of next year’s all-important general elections.

According to Sanusi, determined to track the fund, which could only have moved through some of the nation’s financial system, he had at a meeting of the Bankers’ Committee (usually attended by bank chief executives) on February 11, nine days before his ouster, “threatened to open the books of the bankers, to trace the money.” He told New York Times of his suspicion that some of the banks were laundering the stolen oil money.

“Some of them were not giving information about their accounts,” the central banker said. “I told them I would order a special examination.”

The report quoted one of the bankers at the meeting as saying, in reference to Sanusi: “He made it clear to them that the CBN would need to unravel what was going on, and they should cooperate.”

This drew the ire of many still smarting from the recent near withdrawal of government funds from their vaults, thereby significantly reducing their earnings and profit margins

“One of us said, ‘What next?’ “ a second banker said. “There was a general heaviness. He spoke tough.” Both bankers requested anonymity.

Panicked, several of the bankers went straight to the government, Sanusi told New York Times, while two of the bankers “went and reported to the Petroleum Minister,” he said. And at that moment, Sanusi knew his days were numbered.

“The strategy of the government was to discredit the messenger,” he said. The Nigerian president “doesn’t want me to bring out any more information that would get them into trouble.”

Sanusi’s account is “untrue,” a spokesman for President Goodluck Jonathan insisted, just as Reuben Abati, spokesman to President Goodluck Jonathan said “Sanusi has been making all kinds of claims to project himself as a victim.”

The report quoted an email by Abati, accusing the former CBN governor of “financial recklessness, abuse of mandate, incompetence and criminal acts of negligence.”

Nigeria’s state oil sales “feature undue complexity, extensive discretion and well-documented flaws,” Revenue Watch, a group focused on natural-resource management, wrote in an examination of the central banker’s declarations.

“In such a system, the line between mismanagement and corruption is difficult to draw, as shortcomings in process often benefit specific private interests.”