Leadership (Abuja)
Louis Achi
24 October 2009
interview
Abuja — He is not a rocket scientist. But while proving that banking is simply not rocket science, he has certainly borrowed some tricks from that high precision field to upturn the pack of cards that the nation's banking sector has turned out to be. Navigating with a master's of economics degree from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, a second bachelor's degree in Sharia and Islamic studies, and a peculiar fascination for risk analysis and management, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Aminu Sanusi has simply seized the centre stage as the poster-boy of the Umaru Yar'Adua hitherto colourless administration. His appointment as the Central Bank of Nigeria governor, midway into Yar'Adua's first term in office, arguably represents the defining moment of the later's presidency.
Lizard lean, urbane, impatient with political distraction and gifted with a cutting intellectual mindset, Sanusi, a prince in Kano's royal house whose grandfather, Alhaji Muhammadu Sanusi, was the Eleventh Emir of Kano has set a stern reformist agenda for the nation's undisciplined, crooked banking sector and vowed to carry it through. But why bother at all with this quirky sector?
With little question, the financial services sector is a crucial arena for every modern economy. It provides key services for society, generates macroeconomic efficiency and forms the transmission channel for monetary policy: By virtue of horizontal and temporal financial mediation, banks facilitate regeneration of a substantial part of a country's GDP.
Furthermore, almost no modern monetary policy tools can be effective without the transmission mechanism that banks and capital markets together provide. Economic management depends on the presence of a healthy financial sector.
Perhaps it is trite restating that the health of a country's economy is closely related to the soundness of its banking system. Though banks create no new wealth but their borrowing, lending and related activities facilitate the process of production, distribution, exchange and consumption of wealth. In this way the financial services sector become very effective partners in the process of economic development. Today, modern banks are very useful for the utilization of the resources of the country. The banks are mobilizing the savings of the people for the investment purposes. The savings are encouraged and saving rate increases. If there would be no banks then a great portion of a capital of the country would remain idle and stagnate.
The foregoing scenario sharply contexualises the danger inherent in wilful indiscipline and outright corruption rife in the sector. This has clearly has been the case in Nigeria's financial services sector.
In successive essays, interviews with local and foreign media, innumerable clarifications, Sanusi has pushed his vision of what the nation's banking sector ought to be. For his candour, he has come under blistering flak from forces that prefer and feed fat on the status quo. In the more comic moments of opposition blitzkrieg he was accussed of being imperious, perhaps an allusion to his royal background. Though it must be acknowledged that some critical fire he has received came from informed and sincere stakeholders. Interestingly the Kano prince has laid no claims to sainthood but had deployed clinical facts and on occassions, some wry humour to puncture his opponents' strident arguments.
His procedural screening at the National Assembly gave the lanky Kano prince away as a daring professional with remarkable bluntness and the intellectual depth to journey into feared territory. He even took on the presidential 7-point agenda and gave his alarmingly frank views on how to catalyse the transformative developmental change Nigeria sorely needs. Sanusi quite early on warned of his preparedness to force out bank chiefs who flouted Central Bank rules. He did exactly that. His informed criticism of lax management caused several banking executives to campaign against his appointment. But they failed woefully.
Since ascending the saddle as the apex bank's boss, Sanusi has subjected the nation's hitherto existing 24 banks to stern a examination regime. Most of them did not come out smelling like roses. Essentialy, he is attempting to impose a new order that will kill for good, the apparent policy cacophony that has bedeviled this critical sector.
Under his guidance, the apex bank has conceptualised the idea of an asset management company and have served noticed it's going to work with the Ministry of Finance and the National Assembly to bring that to fruition as quickly as possible. Essentially the idea is to re-oxygenate the sick financial institutions. Sanusi couches this measure in his trademark clarity: "The language we use in the Central Bank is that these banks are on life support, and we'll move them now to a safe harbour. By putting them on a life support, you have arrested deterioration, you've stabilised them, you make sure they are ready to go back to competitive stage and then, you gradually and gently, without too much disruption, move them to safe harbour-that harbor might be injection of capital from the local capital market or from outside or a merger with a local bank or an acquisition by a foreign bank but at the end of the day, the idea is to make sure these institutions continue in one form or the other without jeopardising deposits and loans."
The fallout from this exercise has dominated debate, generated rancour, triggered the suspicion of a 'northern agenda,' unmasked some big masquerades in the sector and has set the stage for a fundamental change in the sector's laiser faire modus operandi. Sanusi, it would appear, is instigating a rational attempt at forming new policy plank that would prevent a future crisis in the sector as was witnessed recently. Boiled down to its bare basics, the crisis was driven by unprofessionalism and deliberate mischief. Clearly, he has quickly shaken up the financial sector with calls and actions targeting stricter regulation, more transparency and accountability. Interestingly, he is also willing to allow more foreign banks to take controlling stakes in Nigerian banking institutions. This policy footing should re-instill confidence in the sector that banks will not collapse as a result of unstable capital base or fundamentals. Recently, in Istanbul, Turkey, at the just concluded Annual Meetings of the World Bank and the IMF, Sanusi gave rare insights into his fight to cleanse the Augean stable that the nation's banking sector has come to represent. This is our cover choice. Read on...
What steps and efforts are the CBN taking to ensure that the global economic crisis have little or no impact on the banking industry and the economy at large?
You see, the global financial crisis has affected Nigeria through two principal channels: it affected the economy through the oil price channel, and the collapse of oil prices naturally on the government revenue, budgeting process and the external reserve situation. That translated to the rapid depreciation of the Naira and pressures for under-budget and deficit.
It has also affected the Nigerian economy through the outflows of Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs), which manifested in the crash of the stock exchange. Now, the problem is that both of these channels had an impact on some sections of the banking industry because a number of banks - a minority in number but not certainly inconsequential, had taken large exposures to both the capital market and the oil marketing industry. You'll note that oil price had gone up to $147 per barrel and Nigeria is one of the few countries in the world that produces crude oil and does not refine.
On the other hand, you'll note that in all oil producing countries, the price of oil is highly correlated to asset price in the capital market because when oil prices are high, you have a tremendous amount of liquidity in the system and that liquidity tends to find its way first and foremost into the stock market before it moves out into longer-term investments. So you had a situation where some banks had huge exposures to capital market, huge exposures to the oil industry, both of them were correlated and therefore, when both of them suffered, those banks took a very big hit. I think everybody understood that banks that had exposures had problems. What we didn't know was the extent of the impact and may be the total universe of banks. Obviously, there were indications in some cases where banks were clearly liquidity stressed. These were banks that were borrowing money from the central bank at the Expanded Discount Window (EDW) and clearly were unable to pay: so there was a process of sub-selection in that respect. Some banks had taken money since last October and up to June this year they had not paid back and these were large amount. These banks were hardcore borrowers; remember that EDW was for banks that no longer have any liquid asset to pledge: if they had treasury bills or government bonds, they would have gone to the standard borrowing facility. So, having exhausted that facility - these were banks that had taken all the money they could take at the inter-bank, they had also taken all the money they could take at the normal central bank window, and were still short of liquidity. So, that was a clear sign of difficulty.
Consequently, we had the first round of intervention, which was the decision that was announced on August 14, 2009 - affecting five banks (Oceanic Bank Plc, Union Bank of Nigeria Plc, FinBank Plc, Intercontinental Bank Plc and Afribank Nigeria Plc. These banks accounted for 90 per cent of the exposure at the discount window. We discovered that these banks failed the liquidity ratio test, the capital adequacy test and also failed our governance test, while five others passed. We concluded the remaining 14 banks and announced the results last week (over two weeks ago) and the result this time was much better than the previous one: out of 14 banks, nine were cleared, while five (BankPHB Plc, Spring Bank Plc, Equitorial Trust Bank, Wema Bank Plc and Unity Bank Plc) others failed. Only one of these banks was systemically important, others were very small and their impact really not much. We had governance issues only in three of these bank and I must say that the governance issues we discovered in the three were in most cases not as bad as some of the governance issues we saw in the first round of intervention. So when people say the central bank is treading softly. It is just that the nature of the issues that came up and the enormity was not was it was at that time; we haven't changed anytime. You deal with every situation according to the gravity of the situation - you don't use a sledge hammer to kill a mosquito. So the issues we found are not as severe, which is why you've not seen at this point the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) locking up people if not people being arraigned. But by and large, the issues we've seen so far with the exception of one bank...are not too serious.
I'll also add, as we said in the press statement, that the president has approved in principle, the recommendation for an asset management company - we are going to work with the Ministry of Finance and the National Assembly to bring that to fruition as quickly as possible and we are now moving to the next stage. The language we use in the central bank is that these banks are on life support, and we'll move them now to a safe harbour. By putting them on a life support, you have arrested deterioration, you've stabilised them, you make sure they are ready to go back to competitive stage and then, you gradually and gently, without too much disruption, move them to safe harbour-that harbor might be injection of capital from the local capital market or from outside or a merger with a local bank or an acquisition by a foreign bank but at the end of the day, the idea is to make sure these institutions continue in one form or the other without jeopardising deposits and loans.
What is the true position on the funds released to the 10 banks that has failed the special examination and stress test? Is the CBN and the federal government taking over any of the bank?
If a bank is systemically important, and its survival is considered critical or essential for the financial system, there's a possibility of the government converting its stakes into equity until such a time when we find a buyer. That is different from an active policy of nationalisation. It is something that may happen by default, because there's a limit on how long you can keep a bank on loans - this loan has to be converted because the bank needs capital; and that capital must come either from private sources or from government sources. If it doesn't come from private sources, then there may be a need for government to take up the equity and pay off the central bank loan and thereafter, sell as quickly as possible. I want to make it very clear that the president, the Minister of Finance, and the governor of central bank are one and that banking is not a business for government. There is no desire at all to return banks to government ownership. The history of government owned banks does not leave us with any sense that government is a good manager of banks. I can assure you that the moment the government owns the banks; you are going to have politicians nominating directors. And it's not just nominating directors; they are going to be looking for loans - it becomes one big parastatal for political patronage. The president, the Finance minister and the governor of the central bank know that is not in the interest of the financial system for government to own banks.
How did the Central Bank select the new managers for these banks that are now on life support? For how long are they going to stay at the helm of affairs?
In the initial period, we restricted ourselves by saying we don't want to employ people who are currently serving in banks because we did not want any accusations of trying to hand a bank over to its competition. So we then had to look at retired bankers. This is an industry where people who have been there for a long time, who have set a distinction and who have set a record are. You have a pool of people: some of the people who we'll put in this second batch (their names have already been announced) for instance, were always on the table when we are considering people for managing director. But we needed only five because we had to generate a list of people within the central bank and Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC). We made a number of criteria; first is that there was a very clear recognition that these institutions were going to be run as going concern, they were not there to liquidate the institution - so it was not a matter of sending somebody from the central banks' banking supervision or NDIC to go and liquidate a bank. We wanted bankers who could cope with challenge and who could move the banks forward. Now, if you look at what happened with the first set of five banks: why didn't we have a run? We (CBN) on our part helped the situation by talking to government agencies and governors and ministries - telling them that the banks were safe. But the people we put in there, given their pedigree and experience were able to pick up the phone and call corporate treasuries to say: I am in charge of this bank and am assuring you that your bank is safe! And they said: if you are telling me that, I believe you. We selected people that we believed had the reputation and had the ability to manage those institutions and to turn them around. And basically, that was it - these were people that were (you all know them and you know the banks they served in) in the banking industry, just calling them inspire confidence in the minds of many people.
During the special examination of the first 10 banks, one of the issues was that if a company has a loan that is performing at bank A, and also a loan that is not performing in bank B, the loans in the two banks would be classified as non-performing. How do you reconcile this?
No, and I'll tell you what happened. In principle and if you are to strictly apply risk management principles, apart from regulators - even as risk manager, if I have a loan to you, and I go and check at the credit bureau, and find that you have defaulted in your loan with another bank - I should classify your loan as non-performing because you are already a defaulting customer...that is the principle. Now, the principle in the guidelines of the regulators is the same. When they go to different banks and find a customer as non-performing in some banks, they classify in your bank and urge you to provision because your own capital is at risk-because what they'll be doing is moving money from your loan to service other loan and the next thing is you have a bad loan. Now, the first time they went and did the reports, they used that. When the banks complained, I intervened. When I heard all the complaints, I said to them: this is our rules but you don't want to expose yourself to any charge of anyone saying: this loan is performing in my books and you classified it. So we asked them to work on the basis of performance in the banks' books. So it was not done. No loan that was performing was classified as non performing. But it is true that you heard people who said...look; there is a customer that is in court with another bank facing liquidation. As a risk manager, when I was running risk, if any bank took my customer to court for liquidation, I would have classified that account-but we still allowed it in other banks' accounts if you are performing because we did not want these allegations...what we were trying to do is to establish which banks are in grave situation.
It was alleged that consolidation would make banks more capable of lending to the real sector and thereby facilitate development but at the end of the day, we found that they actually lend to oil marketers. There hasn't been that much improvement in terms of lending to the real sector. Why is it still so?
The exposure of banks to the real sector actually increased significantly after consolidation but the reality is that a loan is only made when the bank is satisfied that the customer is in the position to service that loan appropriately. I believe again that this was a point raised during my screening. The real sector requires loans but it requires more than loans. It is very easy to blame the banks but really, did the manufacturing collapse because it did not have loan or because it did not have power? Part of the problem with the fallout of consolidation is that the banks raised so much capital; they need to have a return on capital, and all outlets for loans were not there. The large oil and gas companies: the Shells, the Mobils that used to be major consumers of the credits were not producing because the Niger-Delta crisis made it such that the wells were shot down. Refineries were not working; a population of 150 million needed petroleum products...now the problem was that those banks that had problems took risks that were not structured. But the wise banks lent to the oil majors; they lent to Petroleum Products Marketing Corporation (PPMC) or they lent to people who already had orders from PPMC or the oil majors. So by the time they established an letters of credit (LCs), you know exactly how much you are going to get when the petroleum products are delivered. Now, those that took risks established LCs on the assumption that by the time the vessels arrived in Nigeria, oil price would have gone up and they would get an order.
And it happened! For many years they did it and they did it very well. You know it was the same thing with shares. People borrowed money to buy shares. They borrowed money at 25-30 per cent because they were so sure that given the way the stock market was going, in a month or two, the share price must have gone up to that level where they could sell and payoff the bank and make a profit. And people did the same thing with oil marketing. They established LCs, brought in vessels, two days to Lagos, you'll get an order. And because you bought at a low price and the price had gone up in between the three weeks: you'll charge on the new price. So, some people were making far more money than people who hedged their risks - because when you hedge your risk, the LC would say very clearly that I will give you two per cent or three per cent above plat...so when you show the price of which you bought it, the date you bought it, you have your margin at your stem. Now, if you didn't take that order and you bought and price goes up in between, you'll put a margin on it: you say okay, this is the price today, even though you bought at the price two weeks ago. Now the problem is that it works exactly the other way: so you've established the LC, and the ship arrives, and the price has gone down by 30 or 40 per cent - that is the price at which you get an order. So the banks that took those risks were the ones that got caught: and the same thing with the stock market.
Given the controversies that trailed the acquisition of Spring Bank by BankPHB, the Finance Ministry, a few months ago, turned in a report, which said that the merger should not go on. Are you looking at that report?
I have not seen that report. I have read in the newspapers that there was a report done to the president. I have not received any formal communication; I have not heard the presidency confirm that there was a report of such. I cannot act on the basis of what I read in the newspapers.
The second issue is also that if there are matters in a court of law, it is the court that'll decide if the law was broken in the process - it is not for the central bank...the complication with the Spring Bank case is that you'll remember the money didn't go into the bank, the money went to shareholders. So it is going to be very difficult for me to even say what would happen. Are you going to ask those people to pay back the money to BankPHB? Or is the bank going to pay the money on behalf of the shareholders who have taken the money? Is that a solution? I don't want to prejudge anything and I don't want to pre-empt any decision. From a practical perspective, what will seem to be a reasonable thing to do would be to see in what manner some accommodation can be reached with aggrieved shareholders and in what manner their interest can be taken into consideration in any kind of arrangement that Spring Bank gets into in the future. This is the only way I see this happening otherwise; it's going to be very difficult.
Have we seen the end of the cleansing exercise or are we still expecting more banks to go. What happens if Unity Bank and Wema Bank fail to meet the June 2010 deadline for them to raise fresh capital?
I can't guarantee anything! And the banks that are going down are not the banks that the United States of America Fed injected money into. The US Fed focused on systemically important institutions. I think right now, hundreds of banks have collapsed in the USA but these are small banks that the Fed adjudged not systemically important. We define systemically important banks as banks that have more than five per cent market share - and that'll leave you with about 10. Out of the banks that have been affected with this exercise, out of the banks we've had to put money into, only Oceanic, Intercontinental, Union and BankPHB will be considered systemically important. Do I guarantee there would not be problem? I do not. Will I do my best to save every bank? Yes. Is it likely that a systemically important bank would collapse? No! But if a bank is not systemically important, I will have to make a judgment: does it make sense to put in shareholders funds of a very large amount to save a bank that is not important systemically? Or does it make sense to wind up the bank in a systematic manner and payoff the depositors or transfer depositors' money to another bank in a sort of purchase and assumption arrangement in a way that the bank quietly goes? And that judgment would be made by the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria at the appropriate time. At the moment, the emphasis is to assume that the banks have a future and to preserve them until that judgment is made.
What is the position with the MINT in this country is still living up to its billing, and can it continue to meet our currency demands?
On Nigeria Security and Printing Corporation, the Mint has actually done very well. It's about the only security mint in West Africa. It does work not only for Nigeria but other African countries; it produces a substantial part of our currency requirements. I am sure that there are many process issues, that there are many production issues, that there are many governance issues that we need to look at. I have no doubt in my mind that we would do that in due course and we'll do that with all the subsidiaries of the central bank.
When you got the audit report of the banks and discovered that some of them were distressed, why didn't you hand them over to the NDIC, which has the statutory responsibility of taking care of such matters?
Our recommendation to the president was not to liquidate the banks. The experience of this country has been that we have not managed liquidations very well. When you give a bank a license as a government, you have effectively said to the Nigerian people that their money is safe with that institution. If an institution like that is about to collapse, with millions of depositors, shareholders and customers; it is incumbent upon us (the government) to do our very best to save that institution. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to hand the banks to NDIC and then let people lose their money. But in this situation, usually the correct decisions are the difficult ones. So, risking those deposits was for me, not an option in the first instance. I think Nigerians should only lose their money in the bank after the central bank and the government has done every single thing in their power to save that deposit from getting lost. That is my believe.
The second thing is that if you go back to the Central Bank Act, the duty of the central bank governor is to always act in the interest of depositors and creditors - and my judgment was that it was not in the interest of depositors and creditors at this point in time to allow those decisions to go to NDIC for liquidation. It was more in their interest to put more money to change management and then, to try to recover as much of that money as possible. Now, I have no doubt in my mind that some of that money may not come back, I don't think you can save N8 trillion in deposits after what has happen without losing some money. But I think we can minimise the cost of the Nigerian people and make sure depositors don't lose money and that's what we are trying to do.
How has the apex bank been able to manage inflation in the country especially now that its declining year-to-year?
When I became governor of central bank, inflation rate was 15 per cent. By end of August, it was 11 per cent. The gap between the official rate and parallel rate was 25 per cent: as at today, it is 2.98 per cent (two and half weeks ago). All short term money market rates today are lower than they were in December 2008. We've delivered macroeconomic stability. You hear about inflation when it is going up; you hear about interest rates when they are going up; you hear about exchange rates when the Naira is volatile and depreciating ... but when last did you hear about exchange rates? We've checked stable exchange rate. In fact, in the last one week; I have been fighting against the rapid appreciation of the Naira because of return in confidence. It's just that in the management of the macro economy, the CBN has been so successful and we've done all of these in the middle of all those financial turmoil. There's been no spike on inter-bank rates, there's been no spike on exchange rates, there's been no capital flight, and inflation has not gone up - those are the facts. The president mentioned in this in his Independence Day speech. Those achievements of his administration nobody talks about. Inflation is likely to go to 9 per cent by the end of the year. Look at our exchange reserves and foreign reserves - we stemmed the outflow: we were losing foreign reserves at the rate of $2 billion per month. In the last two months we have lost nothing.
Possibly, but I hope you do understand that when crude prices rise, there's a three-month effect. We have not yet started seeing the impact of the higher oil prices. What was happening was that you had a major outflow of currency when people had a crisis of confidence. People start buying dollars if they feel the Naira will continue depreciating and you cannot manage it. People start buying dollars and taking their money out if you feel that there's a risk that in the next few weeks, you might come up with a new policy that makes it difficult for them. I think in few months; we had about eight different foreign exchange circulars - practically one circular every week. And what happened? People started thinking very soon government is going to start having rules that stop them from taking their money out. And they started demanding dollars that they didn't need: just speculative demand. I think people now understand there is policy consistency and they understand they can take their money out whenever they want to as long as it is legitimate.
There seems to be some problems in the microfinance sub-sector, with about 700 of such institutions licensed, can the CBN cope with their supervision?
Sincerely, it is not conceivable that we are going to be able to supervise thousands of microfinance banks. The central bank cannot retain an army of supervisors. And the limited pool we have is going to be very much engaged with the banks that we have because if you are going to have tighter supervision and risk based supervision - remember you are going to look at these banks - not just their head office and branches but their subsidiaries in Nigeria and abroad. So we do have a lot of work to do right now. The reality is if a model has worked in Ghana, that's why I said we've sent people to look at it. If it is a model that is working, and if it is working very well, there's absolutely no reasons why we cannot adopt it. I'm sure Ghana didn't pull it out of their hat. When the team comes back, they'll tell us where Ghana copied it from. But what is important is: is it a model that works? And is it a model that works better than the model we have today? It then becomes a low cost effective way of monitoring them. It's very simple to issue the licenses: we can issue the licenses and have 5,000 microfinance banks but then, what happens? They've got to be regulated. Somebody has to look at them to make sure they play by the rules.
How do your monitor the activities of the deposit money banks apart from the routine returns they make to the CBN?
On a daily basis we receive reports from the banks through the eFASS technology and as regulators, we have powers that auditors don't have - which is why when people say to me: where about the auditors, I say we have access to information that auditors don't. Auditors go and they can only act based on what the management give them. Our examiners go and they can demand information. They can go and look at the database and they can reconstruct accounts. And so therefore, when you send people on special examination, they may discover things that were not revealed to you by bank management. Consequently, we found in some cases, that what we were getting was very different from what the true situation was: and when we found that there was a wide divergence. So, we had reasons to just deliberate and decided that it was a governance issue and that we should change the management - because if it were a sincere business issue, why would you conceal it? We have a duty as examiners to go and check and we try not to be intrusive under normal circumstances and we do believe that the vast majority of bankers give us information that is more or less what they believe to be true. You know you can always disagree on classification and sitting down as a regulator and having being on the other side, I can see clearly well why some disagreement would happen. Sometimes, you have a loan the central bank says if its 90 days past and such classified as substandard - and that is true.
The bank feels it's got a promise, it's got a receivable and for that reason, it takes it as performing -because it understands that somebody is going to pay. You'll get into that discussion and then you decide whether you are going to use subjective criteria to change classification or not. And you have a discussion and sometimes, it can go either way: so we are not talking about that. We are also not talking about small mistakes of about N5 million. We are talking about loan that is N20 billion, N5 billion, N3 billion - that has been long over due. Usually what you find is that a bank sells it out as commercial paper (CP), bring in money and pretend that the loan is not on the books. We have loans that have been bad for years that were never reported. Every time the examiner comes, they count it into their credits because just before the examination, it was converted as CP and sold into the market. So, these are the kinds of things we find in some institutions and that's why you have these gaps - even sometimes, the examiners didn't know. If their account is not in debit, you don't even know it's a loan. You think the man has money in the account but it's not his money. The loan was sold as CP to another bank and the cash was put in the account. It's very easy with the benefit of hindsight for people to say: what were the examiners doing? I, professionally, am a risk manager. So I know where the bodies are buried, and that is the difference. So I know exactly what to ask people to look out for in all of the institutions that they went to. And they were able to see things they were not able to see before.
Read comments. Write your own.
Copyright © 2009 Leadership. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
In this interview, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi said " "You see, the global financial crisis has affected Nigeria through two principal channels: it affected the economy through the oil price channel, and the collapse of oil prices naturally on the government revenue, budgeting process and the EXTERNAL RESERVE situation. That translated to the rapid depreciation of the Naira and pressures for under-budget and deficit."
Is this an admission that the External Reserve which stood at about 60 billion US dollars by the time he assumed office as CBN governor has vanished? If it is, could he please tell Nigerians in a few words what happened to it. I say a few words because if Sanusi Lamido Sanusi is smart at anything, it is in skill in PROPAGANDA. He uses many words to confuse the gullible. He and other Jihadist oppressors are presently pointing fingers elsewhere while parading themselves as apostles of transparency and corporate governance. Meanwhile the looting and stealing go on and are perpetrated, not by the people they are pointing at but by the same Hausa-Fulani corrupt criminal oligarchs.
Meanwhile, let's briefly look at the indices of his success. The Naira exchange rate which stood at N120 = 1 USD when he came is now 153 = 1USD. Similarly, the Euro exchange was N170 = 1 Euro but now is N223 = 1 Euro. Except for the oil industry, foreign investors stopped coming when he embarked on his present QUIXOTIC adventure. International business transaction is more difficult. Nigerians are not investing in the stock market. Nigerian banks are not lending. Ordinary Nigerians are suffering even more. The list goes on.
So, after listening to Sanusi Lamido Sanusi's PROPAGANDA please come back here and see if anything has improved. I believe he makes it easier for those who still have any doubts to understand that we have an urgent need to get rid of the Hausa-Fulani criminal Jihadist oppressors - to excise them to their natural country.
excisionist@gmx.com
Kudos Mallam Sanusi, more people as yourself are needed in leadership in Nigeria in order to restore faith in the nation. Of noteworthy is your intelectual acumen and simple way of breaking down complex financial concept. May God continue to give you wisdom to accomplish the mission you set forth.