Mr. Herman Hembe, until recently the chairman of the Capital Markets Committee in the lower house of the National Assembly, was ostensibly leading an investigation into the collapse in the value of equity on the Nigerian Stock Exchange between 2008 and 2009. Somewhere along the way, his committee launched something of an attack on Ms. Arunma Oteh, current Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mr. Oscar Onyema, current Managing Director of the Nigeria Stock Exchange. Ms. Oteh and Mr. Onyema were appointed to their current positions after the stock market collapse.
Ms. Oteh counter-attacked, accusing Mr. Hembe of demanding a bribe. You've probably all seen the video:
Mr. Hembe called for the EFCC and ICPC to investigate her accusation. He later resigned as Chair of the Committee, but also counter-accused Ms. Oteh, arguing the SEC (i.e. Ms. Oteh) offered him the bribe first. Oh, and he said some thing about her allegedly excessive expenses paid for with government money while she was lodged at the Transcorp Hilton in Abuja.
It is a soap opera ... but it is not what this post is about.
My attention was drawn to comments attributed in BusinessDay to CBN Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi. I have often said that Sanusi is the only political figure in Nigeria I could ever vote for, not because I agree with everything he says/thinks, but because I know what he thinks.
Sanusi has been writing and speaking about Nigerian issues for years, expressing honest, forthright, thoughtful and at times controversial opinions. Virtually everyone else in the Nigerian political landscape is either a blank canvas that nothing substantive is known about (yet they have supporters) or are people who, like politicians all over the world, tell citizens (or specific segments of the citizenry) exactly what they think those citizens want to hear, while revealing nothing of substance of their actual thoughts on the issues (mainly because their thoughts are supportive of most of the things the citizens oppose).
But like I said, I don't always agree with what he says. I certainly don't agree with what BusinessDay attributed to him, viz:
It is only fitting that this diary starts from the questions so poignantly raised by Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi at a well appointed gathering in Lagos on Friday.
He asked, “can you rightly question the competence of this 1984 first class honours graduate in computer science from Nsukka and who went on to take an MBA from Harvard University and then worked at the African Development Bank for 18 years and could have been the governor?“Can you really question her competence to head the Securities and Exchange Commission?
“And do you know who is questioning her competence? A 2005 graduate of the University of where? Benue State and the fellow became a member of the House the following year?”
Sanusi, known for being unusually outspoken in Nigeria asked the questions as he set the tone for his brilliant presentation as key note speaker at the knowledge roundtable on financial system stability organised by one of the country’s outstanding law firms, Olaniwun Ajayi, LP.
He cited Nigeria as a place where one can become the target of harassment and intimidation for standing up to vested interests.
Sanusi had said he did not want to speak to or about the macabre hearing at the House of Representatives because he did not want anyone to say he insulted him or her ,but not many in the audience thought he could keep quiet for long given, the outrage.So it was not a surprise when the CBN governor asked rhetorically, “do you keep quiet and watch while a good person is being hung and dried for pursuing reform, or do you stand up in support? At the CBN, we will support reform minded people and regulators because an attack on one is an attack on all reform minded regulators.”
I don't know if BusinessDay misquoted him. Perhaps they quoted sentences where it would have been more elucidatory to quote an entire paragraph or two.
Don't misunderstand me. I do not doubt Ms. Oteh. On the other hand, I do not not doubt her (double negative). I do not have an opinion whatsoever because I am not in a position to know who did what. There is no available, credible information upon which to make a conclusion. Programmatically, I find I am somewhat opposed to the SEC and NSE's plan for demutualization, but that has nothing to do with the who did what to whom when and how malarkey of the soap opera.
No, my disagreement with Sanusi's quoted comments have nothing to do with Ms Oteh or Mr Hembe at all.
It is the way Sanusi reportedly outlined a person's degrees, the prestigious universities the person's degrees were obtained from, the famous institutions the person worked for in the past, and then designated the person as "a reformer" ... which apparently led him to the conclusion that mere mortals have no grounds to question the person's suitability for a public service or political job.
That is nonsense and Sanusi knows it. You know how I know he knows it? Because everything he said about Arunma Oteh was also said about Charles Soludo, his predecessor as CBN Governor, and the fact is Sanusi has spent most of his tenure cleaning up the mess left behind by Soludo, reversing or altering some of the "reforms" of his "reformer" predecessor in the process.
Again, please take note, I am not criticizing Ms. Oteh or agreeing with the most likely corrupt Mr. Hembe.
There is another point I am trying to make.
The fact that a person has fancy degrees from a fancy university and used to work for one of the many multilateral organizations does not mean that their actions and decisions are beyond reproach, beyond question, beyond doubt. And insofar as they take actions and make decisions with "political" implications, then anything and everything they do should be rightly questioned by we, the electorate.
Indeed, one problem I had with Soludo, a problem I must admit I have with Sanusi too, is they both seemed to make what seemed to be one-man decisions on issues that should actually have been debated and decided politically, through elections driven by that particular issue, ultimately candidates elected by citizens based on the citizens knowing what the candidates' view on that issue is.
Of course our elections are not really driven by issues, and for the most part the votes of the electorate do not necessarily determine the results. The absence of issues in our voting was made clear by the map showing who won what state in the 2011 Presidential Election. We all know why the pro-Buhari states voted for Buhari, and we all know why the pro-Jonathan states voted for Jonathan (even the ones otherwise owned by ACN and APGA). After all that, the whole Nigeria was shocked when Jonathan summarily removed the fuel subsidy. I mean seriously, why would you vote for someone when you have no idea, not even a shred of an idea what they are going to do once elected?
Still, that doesn't mean CBN Governors get to decide political questions on their personal whim, or in the case of Sanusi, take over the Federal Executive's economic development and economic policy functions. The question of whether Sanusi or Jonathan would be better at economic policy-making is entirely besides the point. Institutions are more important than individuals, and neither Sanusi nor Jonathan will be in their respective jobs forever, so it cannot be a question of whom is personally better at it, but of what our institutional structure is supposed to function as and why it doesn't quite function properly.
But I digress.
My point is, even the most decorated, educated "technocrat" could make the wrong decisions even on straightforward bureaucratic matters, much less important, future-affecting political questions and economic policy. They can be wrong and they are often wrong. Indeed, I am not exactly sure why people act as though a lifetime of working at the World Bank means you somehow know how to transform an economy like Nigeria's.
Did any country in the world that transformed its economy by following the diktat of the Bretton Woods organizations? Indeed, as much as we Nigerians have bad memories of "military rule", and as much as the world (and myself) love democracy, the political and economic transformation of nations has more often been superintended by autocrats or army generals. And yes, that includes the USA, with their long line of presidents who used to be Army generals famous for doing immoral things in the service of strategic political and economic interests.
But I am digressing again.
The fact is, regardless of where Arunma Oteh went to school, regardless of where she used to work before, regardless of whether she designates herself a reformer or is so designated by someone else, and regardless of whether Mr. Herman Hembe is or is not as corrupt as she says he is ... we the people of Nigeria are perfectly entitled to question whether or not Ms. Oteh is suitable for the job.
Sanusi is wrong.
Assuming they quoted him properly.
And by the way, there needs to be more debate about the impending demutualization of the Nigerian Stock Exchange. I mean real debate, not one of those managed "Stakeholder" things that have become the preferred method worldwide for pretending to consult citizens when you have already decided and will do what you have decided even if citizens disagree.
But, as usual, I digres....
