NLC to President: Fight corruption not CBN gov

The Nigeria Labour Congress on Tuesday urged the Federal Government to intensify efforts at fighting corruption in the country.

The congress gave the advice in a statement signed by its President, Mallam Abdulwaheed Omar, and made available to the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja.

It advised the government not to dissipate energy on the suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mallam Lamido Sanusi.

“Rather than dissipate energy on Sanusi, government should focus on irrefutable cases of corruption and bring the culprits to book.

“There are legions, but we dare mention only the SURE-P missing funds, the BMW bullet-proof cars, and the Sanusi revelations at NNPC.

“It is a common knowledge that over the years, NNPC has not come clean on the issue of remittances to the Federation Account, a fact responsible for the routine shunning of invitations by the National Assembly.

“In our view, the most important thing is that government should not lose sight of its fight against corruption which is the major issue here.’’

The statement said government’s commitment to the fight against corruption should be “demonstrable, clear and unambiguous.”

It said that the NLC had watched with concern the exchanges between Sanusi and the NNPC on the one hand and Sanusi and the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, on the other.

“These exchanges dwelled on allegedly unremitted billions of dollars into the Federation Account.

“Sanusi had quoted three different figures as the alleged sum not accounted for by the NNPC earning him a quiet rebuke by the Senate which is investigating the alleged fraud.

“In saner climes, Sanusi would be expected to turn in his letter of resignation the next day for getting the figures wrong, for misleading the public and for embarrassing the government.

“The least expected of him would be a public apology. We are not sure if he did either of the two until his removal was announced.”

The statement said that in spite of Sanusi’s flaws, “the congress believes that the process of his suspension ridicules due process as well as the Act establishing the CBN.’’

It argued that the suspension was flawed by virtue of the fact that full investigations into the allegations had not been concluded before the suspension was implemented.

“We find it intriguing that government and Sanusi could part ways in this fashion.

“We recall Sanusi’s anti-worker policies, statements and his stance during the fuel price-increase protests in January 2012 which was clearly in support of government.

“Sanusi did not deem it fit to apologise to the Nigerian workers after their protests led to the exposure of some of the biggest scams in Nigeria’s history,” the statement added.