Sanusi should apologise to the nation

When Lee Kwuan Yew became leader of the city state of Singapore, one of the 9-point agenda he adopted to prosecute the transformation of his tiny country from a Third World nation to the First World that it is today, is a law against libel. Ever since I got this information, I have been reflecting […]

When Lee Kwuan Yew became leader of the city state of Singapore, one of the 9-point agenda he adopted to prosecute the transformation of his tiny country from a Third World nation to the First World that it is today, is a law against libel. Ever since I got this information, I have been reflecting on why a strong legislation against libel was considered an important ingredient in the transformation of Singapore.
I realised that Singapore of the 60s was very much like Nigeria of today in many respects. In some aspects it was even worse. Those who know say that the Singapore of those days was even more corrupt than Nigeria of today. And in such a thoroughly corrupt setting, allegations of corruption involving humongous sums of money in whatever currencies will be traded, conspiracy theories that bagger belief and tales of unspeakable banalities will be rife. And when a society reaches that level, the faith of the citizenry in leadership will be considerably weakened. Many will seize that opportunity to justify their own wrong doing. Evil minded people will seek to democratise evil doing in order to cover their misdeeds or to give their evil inclination a good face. A leadership that does not take some measure to stop such a trend will not be able to inspire confidence in the people and be in a position to mobilise them for the task of development.
I think this is why that wise and able leader of Singapore thought it necessary to bring into being a law on libel to stop wide allegations that help to harm society instead of shedding light on evil acts that must be confronted so that society can move forward. It is only wise that he who alleges wrong doing against another should sufficiently prove his case or face the music. With this safeguard in place, there will be decency in public discourse. Mischief makers and character assassins will have their over enthusiasm or ardour severely tempered.
In Jewish law and ethics, there is something called lashon hara (slander, malicious speech or what we elegantly call defamation of character) which is treated almost like murder because when you speak ill of someone behind his back, especially unjustifiably, you have almost killed him. Jewish law and teaching forbid the speaking of slander or listening to it. The effect of slander on a listener is that it colours or prejudices his mind against the one spoken ill of.
Why have I gone this long distance to lay a basis for my comment on the letter the CBN Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi wrote to President Goodluck Jonathan alleging that the NNPC has in nearly two years failed to remit almost 50 billion dollars to the nation’s treasury? He did not write that letter as a responsible treasurer of the nation who was concerned about the level of stealing in the country. He took deliberate pain to leak it. Was he seeking to embarrass the President and incite the citizenry against him? What was his motive?
Nigeria is a country where so much stealing takes place that the citizens now tend to believe anything said about stealing on the part of especially those in positions of leadership. And if the CBN Governor comes out one morning to tell the nation that such an amount is missing, who will doubt him? As the proverb of my Bekwarra people quoted at the beginning of this piece says, if the national treasurer of Nigeria Unlimited comes out one day in black and white to say that the Managing Director/CEO is somehow complicit in the missing of a vast sum of the company’s revenue, who will disbelieve him?
Thank God for the grace for circumspection which the Almighty graciously gave me. When the story broke, I told some of my journalism colleagues to be careful because I doubted that any set of thieves will have the audacity to steal such an amount of money, a sum that was nearly the country’s annual budgets for two years.  I told some people that I strongly suspected that at the end of the day we are going to hear the CBN Governor say, as was the case with the late Dr Tai Solarin and the alleged 2.8  dollars missing oil money, that he had heard the rumour from passengers in an ‘’el-Rufai’’ bus plying the Berger-Karu- Nyanya-Mararaba axis. (I have not been far from being correct). But because of the status of the accuser (the CBN Governor) and the fact that our country has become a playground for all sorts of allegations, not many were willing to tread with caution.
As it has turned out everyone, most especially Sanusi himself, is thoroughly embarrassed. Sanusi has wronged Jonathan and wronged this nation. He ought to genuinely apologise to Jonathan and with tear stain on his face, also apologise to Nigerians for misleading them. In fact, in any decent society, the day he realised that his allegation was wild and that the problem was his lack of knowledge of the proper accounting of oil revenues of his country, he ought to have resigned honourably.
This is not the case that should warrant our usual attitude of defending the indefensible by taking recourse to ethnicity or religion or region. Sanusi has betrayed our trust and confidence. A man who rises to the position of CBN governor of any country is not a mere man. He must not be hasty in his pronouncement on any issue, least of all one that borders on figures. Why on earth will a CBN Governor write a letter to his president on a very serious issue and take pains to leak it?
What has come over our nation that a former president who should know better will also in his own leaked letter, quote a CBN Governor’s allegation that has turned out to be false in a substantial manner? Is mischief afoot in our country? Is the goal to rubbish the President or to throw the nation into confusion? The bad examples of former President Obasanjo and CBN Governor Sanusi point to the necessity of strengthening our libel laws to stop wild allegations intended to destroy certain persons and setting the nation on fire.
In fact, there is something to be thoroughly detested in the fact that the governor of a country’s CBN will be acting like the opposition leader or a shadow minister of the exchequer against his country’s president. It is not cricket. There are some jobs that are not meant for passionate activists or talkers in the mould of Sanusi Lamido Sanusi; rather they are meant for reticent men. Sanusi, a very brilliant man, seems to find himself in a wrong job. He must learn to control his tongue, lest he commits more lashon hara.