N100m donation: Falana calls for sanction against Sanusi

Lagos lawyer Mr Femi Falana

Lagos lawyer Mr Femi Falana has urged the Federal Government to call Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi to order.

Falana said Sanusi granted a “provocative interview” to the Financial Times and made an alleged extra-budgetary donation to terror victims. 

According to him, the Federal Government has the duty to compensate victims of civil disturbances arising from the crisis of underdevelopment associated with a neo-colonial capitalist society. He noted that the Goodluck Jonathan administration has embraced this. 

In a statement yesterday in Lagos, Falana urged the Federal Government to restrain Sanusi and other government officials from usurping the statutory functions of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) for what he called dubious political objectives.

He said: “Since the CBN did not make any donation to the victims and the dependants of the hundreds of innocent people who had been  murdered in cold blood in Borno, Yobe, Bauchi, Niger, Kaduna and Adamawa states by the dreaded sect, Mallam Sanusi should be sanctioned for the diversion of public funds through the illegal donation.

“In the said interview, Sanusi blamed the emergence of the Boko Haram terrorist sect on the 13 per cent derivation allocated to the oil producing states from the Federation Account. 

“The publication of the ill-advised interview coincided with the increasing wave of the murderous attacks of the nihilist organisation on innocent people in many parts of the country.

“Since the CBN governor was not called to order for the reckless and diversionary interview by the Federal Government, Mallam Sanusi has been reported to have engaged in the extra-budgetary  donation of N100 million to the victims of the Boko Haram menace in Kano city on behalf of the CBN.

“The illegal donation should not go unchallenged at a time several Nigerians are saying: ‘To Thy Tents O Israel’ due to their unwarranted displacement in some states of the federation.”

The activist said government officials, who have no solutions to the problems confronting the masses, should stop resorting to religious and ethnic sentiments to further divide the antion.