Chairman of Senate Committee on Environment and Ecology, Senator Bukola Saraki has said that President Goodluck Jonathan was not advised properly for suspending the CBN Governor Mallam Lamido Sanusi. He said the action would have far reaching consequences beyond the lifespan of Jonathan’s administration and would also affect the economy adversely as far as investors’ perception is concerned.
Saraki said, “With my own knowledge of the CBN Act and the relevant section which I have gone through, no part of that Act supports the action taken by the President,” he said.
“This kind of thing, to me, is not about Sanusi; it is even more about the new governor who is coming in. Can that governor really say that his tenure is five years?
“There can be a new President tomorrow; down the line, he would say, in 2014, this is what happened. The independence of the position of the governor of Central Bank is no longer there and there are investors outside the country, fund managers that will have about N20 billion invested in this country who took those decisions based on the fact that the CBN is independent.
“The moment those institutions are not protected; they have far-reaching effect on the economy. I think in a way the President was ill-advised.
“Whatever he was trying to achieve is lost because those institutions are more important than the issue of the individual. Also, the law states clearly how the governor of Central Bank can be removed or suspended.”