Femi Fani Kayode Replies Sanusi Lamido Sanusi

I read Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s article about of my friend Nasir El-Rufai with amusement and I have to say that I was pleased with the fact that he wrote it.  I am glad that he has reiterated his love for Nasir and expressed his tremendous respect for him. He has also spoken very well about Nuhu Ribadu who is also  a good friend of mine and he has said that anyone that is their enemy is his enemy too. I am happy for him and when it comes to both Nasir and Nuhu most people  know that these are precisely my sentiments as well. They and I do not agree on everything but we certainly have tremendous respect and affection for one another and we all suffered a terrible bout of political persecution from Sanusi’s masters in the last four years since we left goverment. As I have always said these  are the two people that gave me hope that we could have a united Nigeria again where northerners and southerners could live and work together.



I cannot say the same about Sanusi Lamido Sanusi whom I have always found a little bit more complicated ever since I have known him in the days of the Progressive Acion Movement in 2001. We were both members of that vibrant political association and we often clashed in terms of our world viiew and our vision of what Nigeria should be. I remember those days with fondness and we have both come a long way since then. At that time,as he quite rightly said in his essay, I was a regionalist and yoruba nationalist who did not believe in a united Nigeria anymore simply due to what the Abacha administration had put our people through and due to the June 12 annulment. I was also a hardline foot soldier of NADECO and I reflected the thinking of every self-respecting yoruba man in those days. I believed then, and I still belive today, that if we cannot have a Nigeria where all people are treated as equals regardless of tribe or faith then we should not have a Nigeria at all.
People like Sanusi opposed that view and they believed, and possibly still do, that some Nigerians were born to rule and that some faiths are greater than others.
My views about Nigeria in those days were shared by my leader and mentor Chief Bola Ige and many others and frankly if not for Uncle Bola and my brother Akin Osuntokun who both persuaded me to come back to Nigeria and to get involved with President Obasanjo in 2001 perhaps I would never had done so. And yes, at that time, my views about Obasanjo were precisely what Sanusi said. I, together with virtually every self-respecting yoruba man at the time, regarded him as a tool of the north and that he was brought in to serve their interests in 1999 and as a pawn to stop the Yorubas from breaking away.

That is what we all believed and that is why Obasanjo was overwhelmingly rejected by his people in the 1999 Presidential election. It was after Osuntokun took me for a series of meetings with Obasanjo and Uncle Bola encouraged me to get closer to him that I knew that OBJ had changed and that his intention was to serve all Nigerians and not just the north. This was precisely why I joined his government and after serving him for three years as his spokesman he, thankfully, promoted
me to the position of a Federal Minister in two separate Ministries which is a position that Sanusi is yet to achieve or enjoy.

Now to the point of this contribution. What I find curious about Sanusi’s article is the following. He expresses so much love for El-Rufai and Ribadu yet he so gladly served a government that tried to kill and discredit them both and that drove them into exile and yet he said nothing in their defence publicly at that time. I see that as a contradiction but then that may just be his way. People have different ways of manifesting their loyalty to their friends so let me give Sanusi the benefit of the doubt here and assume that he was not playing a double game of deceit and subterfuge.

My own style and approach to friendship is very different. When I give my friendship or enmity I give it totally but I am always uncomfortable with those that swim with the tide. And I am loyal to a fault to my friends, followers and leaders unless and until they give me a cause not to be. More importantly I could not for the life of me understand why Sanusi felt the need to bring me into his love letter to Nasir El-Rufai. What the relevance of my name was in what was an otherwise
brilliant article is something that is beyond me. Clearly he brought me into it in bad faith and with malicious intent and I suppose he has every reason to do so given the virile role that I played in the oil subsidy debate and because I referred to his boss, the Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, as an agent of the IMF and the World Bank.

There is also another reason which has to do with the various intellectual clashes that we have had over the years. I thought that he had gotten over the series of heated debates that we used to have in the newspapers when he was a public commentator and middle-level banker and when I was a NADECO stalwart 10 to 15 years ago. The fact that he went to Koranic school and I went to Bible school may have something to do with it as well but me and this very slim yet interesting man are more or less like water and oil. We just don’t mix. Thankfully I got over him and his eccentricities long ago and I can just about bear him now especially because he came to my welcome home party at the late Ladi Akintola’s residence in 2001 and gave a wonderful speech about me. I buried the intellectual hatchet and rivalry with him since then and to a certain extent he won my respect and we not only became friends but I was pleasantly surprised when, on a programme on national television
just after he was appointed as Governor of CBN by President Umaru Yar’adua and he was accused of being anti-south and anti-christian, he cited me as one of his southern friends who could testify to the fact that he was not anti-south.

The other thing that I found curious about this slim banker was the fact that in his essay on El-Rufai he wrote that I had written ”in defence of Nasir” and that the words used were mine and ”not El-Rufai’s”. Where on earth he got the idea that I was seeking to represent Nasir’s views or speak for him on this matter I don’t know. I challenge him to produce the article in which I wrote in defence of El-Rufai on the oil subsidy issue. Nasir is a respected friend but I am not his spokesman.
I have spoken up for him on various occassions when lies are told about him just as he has done for me but on this occassion the issue was ”oil subsidy” and not El Rufai. What I wrote about the removal of the oil subsidy was my own contribution to the raging debate and I believe that as someone that has been in active politics for 21 years and that was part and parcel of those that brought the Goodluck Jonathan and Yar’adua administration into power, I have a right and duty to do so.
Whenever and if ever he becomes a Federal Minister or even works at the very highest level of government and not just at Central Bank he will appreciate the burning desire one has to contribute to national discourse whenever one sees fit.

My contributions to the oil subsidy debate, which were encapsulated in just two articles titled ”Who Will Deliver Us From This Goodluck” and ”The Problem Is Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala” respectively were both directed at his two bosses, namely Mr. President and the Minister of Finance whom he reports to, and they did not have anything to do with El-Rufai. Nasir’s views and mine on the removal of the oil subsidy just happen to be the same but my write-ups had already been published in
various newspapers before he publicly expressed his views on the matter in his brilliant interview on AIT.

Sanusi also criticised my words and writing style in a subliminal manner which is certainly his right and perogative. But frankly as regards my style and the words I used in this matter I have no apology and it is clear that I reflected the sheer disgust and anger that most Nigerians had about the removal of the oil subsidy. And that disgust was directed more at the hardliners in the Jonathan administration like him and Okonjo-Iweala than anyone else because the removal of the oil subsidy
was their brain-child and they sought to justify it. Perhaps that is what upset Sanusi or perhaps he believes that he needs to speak up for Ngozi, his Minister and direct boss and the President at whose grace and mercy he keeps his job. Well I don’t begrudge him that in view of the fact that the hardline monetarists in the Goodluck administration like him and Ngozi have been put to shame by the concessions that the President was forced to make to the Nigerian people over the oil
subsidy matter. Both Sanusi and Ngozi spent many hours on television trying to pontificate to Nigerian about the ”blessings” and ”beauty” of having our pump price at 145 naira per litre but unfortunately for them they failed to convince anyone but themselves. Frankly they should both resign now and they woiuld have done so if people placed any stock or value on honour and decency in this country. Let us not forget that many people were killed over this issue and there was much brutality displayed on the streets by the government’s security agents.

As we speak there are still soldiers deployed on the streets of Lagos. And some of us feel bad about this series of events and we blame Sanusi and Ngozi for misleading and misadvising our President. They simply have no empathy with or compassion for the people and they cannot identify with their hardship and suffering. That is the difference between a technocrat from the strange world of international high finance like Sanusi and his boss Ngozi and a politician, lawyer, ”freelance contributor” and ”public commentator” like me. We have a feel of what the people are going through and what they will or will not take but they do not. Whatever is between Sanusi and Nasir is between them and I am very happy for them both but where I come into it I just don’t know. The Governor of Central Bank is almost behaving like someone who is still looking for himself and trying to find his feet or better still a wounded and jealous second wife. He can however be rest assured that I am not Nasir El-Rufai’s wife but rather his friend and neither am I competing with him for Nasir’s validation or affection.

Sanusi's statement.
"I have one request to make and Allah is my helper. Any attack on Nasir el Rufai or on Nuhu Ribadu is an attack on me. Nasir is to my mind is one of the greatest and most patriotic Nigerians to have served in public office and he is by far the best FCT minister we have ever had. Like all of us he is not perfect.

In my AIT interview I said I agreed with 90% of what he said a day before our interview and the two bits I didn’t agree with I stated: I don’t agree that there is no subsidy and I believe Nasir was quoting contributions from tHrusted experts which have been flying around recently including Prof Tam David West.

And we have debated this issue of accounting and economic concepts in this forum. I also do not agree that it is easy in the short-term to have massive fiscal retrenchment without a huge political backlash-indeed the fuel subsidy is one such case and retrenchment for instance would also bring people out.

But Nasir is one person for whom I have always had the highest level of personal respect. His integrity is beyond reproach-of course, people will say anything but after years of trying no one is yet able to show any evidence backing up allegations. Intellectually, I am yet to know anyone who can match him and this has been the case since the 1970s. Femi Fani-Kayode has written in Nasir’s defence but these are not Nasir’s words and if you knew Femi well you would not be surprised or bothered by his peculiar choice of language. I have seen Femi transit from a rabid ethnic chauvinist and christian fanatic who thought Obasanjo was a stooge of the backward Muslim north, to a minister in Obasanjo’s cabinet preaching national unity, and now to some freelance activist and public commentator.

This is just a stage he is going through but I like to think he means well. When AIT requested me to speak they never said it was to respond to Nasir and when we started and they played their clip we told them we didn’t want to personalise this. Nasir and I were friends and brothers as teenagers. We have remained friends and brothers and will remain
friends after office.

We don’t have to agree 100%. He also understands that so long as I am in government I have 100% loyalty to the president. If I feel I cannot be loyal I should step down. This does not mean supporting every policy but it means standing up to play my part in doing what is good for the economy.I, therefore, request please that no one defending me should attack his person. And only those who don’t know Nasir will even think I am his intellectual match- he is just exceptional in his brilliance. "

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