Scoops: the frantic digging for hot, steamy, exclusive stories, is the journalistic equivalent of a military coup de tat. Both scenarios involve discreet, meticulous, strategies and manoeuvres, and then, springing the ultimate surprise when you strike. Confounding your friends and dazing the opponent.
Coups and scoops sound alike. Not surprising, as both entail almost the same consequences of failure: death. Physical death for the plotters in the case of the former, and material death in the latter. A warehouse of unsold copies. A newspaper consigned to mediocrity. Unremarked. Unheralded. A vanishing act as time goes on. And the total eclipse from the newsstands eventually. Little wonder, scoops are called the artery of a newspaper.
At the formal launch of The Blueprint newspaper to mark its one year in the market last Thursday in Abuja, my colleague, Femi Adesina, drew the audiences’ attention to the similarity between scoops and coups. Reviewing the newspaper (which I had the privilege of doing on his behalf), Femi drew wide applause from the distinguished gathering when he dug deep into what happens when a newspaper successfully executes the coup of scoops.
Former military president, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (Special Guest Lecturer), himself a veteran of many successful coups, during the rampaging days of the military, suppressed a guffaw when allusions were made to the similarities between the two, especially when the reviewer deliberately emphasised the statement: “like coups, scoops are planned…scoops, like coups, are planned.” Not only the gap-toothed General, the whole audience went into a fit of laughter.
The message, whatever it was, am sure was not lost. Everyone must have drawn whatever interpretation it wanted from the statement of the reviewer. Talking about coups, I hereby submit in today’s column that if Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, were not a banker, he surely could have been a soldier. Not just a soldier, a ‘coup plotter.’ I am speaking figuratively now. Here is what I mean: like a soldier, Sanusi is bold and courageous.
He talks tough, almost brashly. He does not give a damn whose ox is gored as long as he believes he is on the right track or convinced on the correctness of his cause. And like a soldier, Sanusi loves to plan discreetly. He loves to spring surprises. He loves to do the seemingly unthinkable and ‘undo-able’. If he were in the military, Sanusi’s make-up is the stuff that institution would have been proud of.
That individualistic pursuit of your convictions or decisions. The strong man taking on strong actions. However, for the Kano blueblood, what we have is a civilian dispensation. A democracy or, as the critics would say, a rough version of it. Under this era, no one man, no matter how brilliant or knowledgeable he believes he and his team are, can unilaterally take a decision that has profound impact on the lives of the collective. That’s what Sanusi has often attempted to do since he took office as the nation’s No.1 banker. He’s talked and done tough things.
Some we have applauded, but many we have felt shocked and disturbed over. For me, I have found it difficult to understand why a man should always prefer to swim in troubled waters. Does it give him the kick whenever he wallows in controversy? May be. Some people, I believe, are just like that. They relish the limelight of controversies. If there are none, they become sick; and hurriedly create one. So, be it with Sanusi. Back to what I was saying.
Sanusi has done a few positive things, in my non-economist’s view, that truly made some of us glad. The sanitisation of the so-called Soludo consolidation was a Sanusi ‘coup’ that freaked me. With the zeal of an angry Mullah, the swashbuckling man had taken a horsewhip through the back of some bank’s CEOs who couldn’t differentiate between depositors’ funds and free money, which they deployed to the lavish lifestyle of a monarch in Asia or the Arab world.
Many, I am told, owned private jets and exotic yachts. Under Charles Soludo, a Professor of Economics, the banks and their CEOs simply consolidated our collective funds and lived life to the hilt. While some of the banks were either collapsing or in fact, nearer their graves, Soludo gave them a clean bill of health as they maintained a facade of buoyancy and robustness. However, Sanusi entered with a flaming sword and cleaned the place inside out. He opened the Pandora box, revealing a cesspit of stench. Mind-bogging skeletons of fraud crept out of sealed vaults.
Even though Sanusi was said to be ethnically motivated in the clean up exercise, I didn’t think so. I thought some of his accusers were just talking crap, as no one could prove in absolute terms that those accused of fleecing the banks did not have their hands soiled one way or the other. Even as the cases appeared stalled in the courts, it is to Sanusi’s credit that the hitherto untouchable bank czars are having their day with justice on account of their alleged misdemeanours.
Something that was unheard of in times past. Today, those entrusted with people’s money would think twice before helping themselves to a generous dose of the filthy lucre. I also was quite enthused by Sanusi’s altercation with the law makers over the bogus budget allocation to the National Assembly. At the 8th convocation of the Igbinedion University, Okada, the CBN helmsman had, in a lecture, declared that 25 percent of the federal budget was appropriated for the law makers, and expended on all kinds of items, including, of course, the frivolous.
The legislators screamed blue murder, and promptly summoned him. They wanted a retraction. But, not Sanusi. He stood by what was credited to him in the media. When it was being suggested that his statement was anti-democratic, Sanusi would take none of that. He said: “I am here( at the CBN job) at your pleasure. I am not thinking of quitting, but if you want me to quit, I will gladly do so. I was one of those who fought for democracy. That I did not contest an election does not mean that I do not believe in democracy.” End of session.
End of the drama of summoning the CBN governor to ‘eat his words.’ I wrote in this column then when the issue raged: “At the end of the whole event, Sanusi ended up, in my view, a hero. He portrayed himself as a man with strong balls. For standing up to his views, he earned my respect and I guess, that of millions of Nigerians. He didn’t say he was misquoted. He didn’t try to modify his views or make his statement more pleasant to the ears of the enraged Senators. He simply restated his position despite the bullying tactics employed by Senator Iyiola Omisore and his committee members.” But, ever since , he has, in my opinion, suffered a somersault.
He has continued to plot the wrong kind of ‘coups.’ From the controversy over religious banking, to the ill-advised donation in Kano and Madalla, to the thoughtless proposed introduction of the new N5,000 currency, Sanusi has been putting the wrong foot forward. And this is quite sad for a man I really liked and spoke with on telephone on two or three occasions commending him for his forthrightness and proactive disposition. Please, permit me not to comment on the first two subjects as the disquiet over them appear to have died down and so doing would be akin to reopening old wounds.
Instead, it is the N5,000 currency controversy(which happily has been killed and hopefully, buried forever) that demands a critical evaluation. I straightaway pitch my tent with the many commentators who kicked against the move. Like the preponderance of views expressed, I honestly thought it was a patently confused and confusing idea. Sanusi was approbating and reprobating at the same time, as the lawyers would say. A man who screamed himself hoarse on the cashless policy was, also, at the same time, sounding the drum beats for a higher currency denomination.
Don’t carry cash, then carry a lot of cash in higher denomination. That sounded incoherent. And when the same man began to hurl verbal missiles at opponents of his organisation’s proposed programme, I thought he had gone beyond the limits. How could he call a whole former head of state and president an illiterate in economic matters. It doesn’t matter whether you like or dislike Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. As a Nigerian, like other Nigerians, he had the inalienable right to express his opinion on a public issue. And that was what he was doing. Sanusi, a man paid by all of us tax payers, didn’t have the right to blow such whiff of hot air over a public issue.
He is, after all, supposed to be a public servant, serving all of us. Sanusi’s irritation with criticisms over the controversial new note clearly displayed a negative attitude that has become common place in government arena. And it should stop forthwith, if our country must make progress. Elected, appointed or otherwise, those who serve in government are not necessarily more knowledgeable than other Nigerians who are not in government. They are only privileged. No more.
It is indeed, a welcome relief that this issue of a higher denomination of Nigerian currency has died a well-deserved death. Sanusi’s ‘coup’ of a new currency was, in my view, a coup against the poor people of Nigeria. A coup against the artisans, the unemployed, the market woman, the civil servant, and those who would have been further impoverished by it, because it wouldn’t have uplifted their standard of living in any appreciable manner.
If, anything, Sanusi’s aborted N5,000 note would only have created an illusion of grandeur. Let’s toast to the failed ‘coup,’ fellow Nigerians. A piece of advice to my friend, Comrade Sanusi: let the sleeping dog lie forever!
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