The romance which emir of Kano Lamido Sanusi Lamido has with First Bank is an enduring one. Years after he quit his CEO position to become the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, he remains a worthy ambassador of the country’s oldest bank.
On Wednesday evening when the bank rounded off its 125th anniversary at a gala nite in Lagos, it was unsurprising that Sanusi was asked to give an after dinner response.
He emerged on to the podium led by two courtiers one of whom bore a well embroidered umbrella. The fiery emir soon sought to dampen expectation by offering to steer away from politics since the elections were well and truly over.
He did not disappoint. Choosing to dwell on the pervasive level of poverty in Nigeria and the (bad) choices its leaders make in allocating and managing the scarce resources of Africa’s most populous nation.
Read Also: https://businessday.ng/analysis/article/cbns-priorities-and-audit-process/
He asked, despondently. “how does a nation spend N1.5 trillion to subsidise petrol while its women and children are dying in abject poverty and from diseases that should not be killing them.”
Echoing views that he has long been associated with, the former governor of the central bank said petrol subsidy favours the elite that filled the expansive room at Eko hotel. Subsidies he said helps the rich drive their many big cars by paying little or nothing for petrol while the “most important people” in the country fail in a helpless battle against disease and death.
Sanusi said he had a very early contact with poverty when he became emir. He said there was this particular day, when he was holding court in his palace receiving petitions from his people.
As the day wore on, he suddenly heard aloud agonizing cry of a woman. The palace staff who rushed out to find out what was happening met a heartbroken woman standing on the queue and who had just lost her sick daughter while waiting to beg for less than N2,000 to pay for drugs for her.
He was he said pained by unrelenting population explosion in a country of near 200 million people already and especially in its northern parts where there is attendant high levels of fertility in adults who do nothing else but make babies.
According to him, “our men are marrying more wives than they care care for and having children they cannot cater for.”
Sanusi said it was the responsibility of the country’s leaders to reverse the misery by the choices they make as it was no longer acceptable just to continue with business as usual.
Sanusi also had time for the less serious matter of advising any of the current managers at First Bank with his name to double down on his desk, for who knows, they could well end up as CEO or even go on to be governors of the central bank like himself and the other Sanusi before him who occupied the two revered positions.
As he made to retake his seat, the emir was received by a prolonged standing ovation by a delighted audience of some of the best endowed in society.
Among his audience was vice president Yemi Osinbajo who, later, while speaking completely missed the opportunity he was offered to rally the nation behind new and inspiring options that held promise of a different and better future.
Osinbajo who may have misread the mood of his audience, made light of the matter of life and death raised by Sanusi whom he later called a repentant capitalist.
Although the elections are over, one prominent member of the audience said it seemed no one yet in government was willing to canvass a departure from the current path better defined by delusion and the lack of ambition.
