Twenty minutes to midnight on February 25, 2013, and a day before the board of the Central Bank of Nigeria was due to meet, Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi developed a craving for romance—he badly needed a kiss.
The
governor, married, with children, grabbed his mobile phone and typed
out a message. “Maybe you should come kiss me before board meeting
tomorrow,” Mr. Sanusi wrote and then squeezed the send button.
At
about 9 a.m. the next day, Mrs. Maryam Yaro, a married mother of two,
an assistant director and subordinate to the governor at the CBN,
arrived at Sanusi’s unnamed Abuja hotel, seeking to keep the date and
help address her boss’ craving for a kiss. (Insiders say board members,
including those who live in Abuja, are usually lodged in hotels ahead
of board meetings).
But
by the time Mrs. Yaro left the hotel to return to her official desk at
the CBN, the duo had also struck out an arrangement to spend the rest of
the week together in Lagos.
So,
in the evening of Wednesday February 27, Mrs. Yaro flew to Lagos ahead
of Mr. Sanusi and checked into a hotel in the city, skipping work, at
taxpayers’ expense, on Thursday February 28 and Friday, March 1.
To
keep faith with Mrs. Yaro’s date, the CBN governor arrived Lagos,
travelling on a chartered flight, on the night of February 28, and
checked into the Federal Palace Hotel, passage and boarding all at
taxpayers expenses.
Both Mr. Sanusi and Mrs. Yaro rendezvoused in the hotel till Sunday when both of them returned to Abuja, PREMIUM TIMES learnt.
“…I
had such a wonderful weekend,” Mrs. Yaro confessed to the governor
while aboard her Abuja-bound flight. “You have revived in me what I
thought I lost long ago. I thought I lost the passion to love again,”
she claimed.
“Alhamdulillahi. Love you,” Mr. Sanusi responded in a measured tone.
Insiders say repeated violation of the statutory code of conduct for public office holders such
as hiring his girlfriends and mistresses without complying with public
service rules, dating married and unmarried women within the bank, and
flirting with them during official work hours have become defining
characters of Mr. Sanusi’s governorship of the central bank.
An
official of the bank spoke of how Mr. Sanusi had enthroned nepotism at
the bank, arbitrarily hiring girlfriends and relatives and engaging in
extramarital relationships with staff.
“This
man (the CBN governor) is the most morally bankrupt governor the CBN
has ever had,” the official, who did not want to be named for fear of
retribution, told PREMIUM TIMES. “Forget all the pretences, he is a
shameless man of loose character.”
Investigations by this newspaper revealed that Mr. Lamido hired his latest mistress, Mrs. Yaro, without complying with the CBN recruitment policy that stressed, “all appointments shall be made on the basis of merit, through a fair and open selection process.”
“The
principles underlying the recruitment process are those of fairness,
credibility, equal employment opportunities, merit and optimization of
career prospects for currently employed staff,” the bank said on its
website.
But
Mrs. Yaro, insiders say, was hired in July 2012 without adherence to
these principles. Those who should know say Mrs. Yaro, who was a staff
at the National Programme on Food Security, an agency under the Federal
Ministry of Agriculture, was brought into the bank as assistant director
without “advert for the vacancy and after a kangaroo interview.”
When contacted, Mr. Sanusi said due process was followed in hiring Mrs. Yaro.
He
said having worked for years in the ministry of agric, Mrs Yaro came
highly recommended and qualified for the job for which she was hired.
The
CBN governor continued, “I have known Dr Yaro since 1981. She was my
student in Yola and she later came to ABU Zaria. We have been very good
friends but this is not why NIRSAL took her. You may wish to check her
CV against all the other CVs in NIRSAL. And she did go through an
interview process with the NIRSAL CEO making the decision not CBN HR.
“As
for the personal allegations, this is all strange to me but I have a
personal policy of not responding to such allegations since in Nigeria
anything can be published on any public officer without proof. I have
limited myself to what concerns official allegations and leave you to
your God and your conscience on whatever else you want to publish. Thank
you for telling me though.”
Mrs Yaro however declined comments when contacted by PREMIUM TIMES.
“Be
careful what you are saying,” she told one of our reporters on the
telephone. “I have nothing to comment to you on anything.”
When
asked if she would be willing to respond to specific questions about
her trips to Lagos to keep dates with Mr. Sanusi, she simply said,
“Whatever it is, I don’t know. Will you just let me be?”
But
our investigations revealed that the governor’s claim was far from
accurate. Through several interviews and review of records, PREMIUM
TIMES was able to determine that Mrs. Yaro and Mr. Sanusi had dated each
other for at least six months before she was hired.
Insiders
say Mr. Sanusi repeatedly pestered the human resource department of the
bank ordering it to bring Mrs. Yaro’s application to him for approval.
And once the file reached his table, the governor wasted no time in
treating it.
On
June 25, 2012, Mr. Sanusi, who was travelling in South Africa at the
time, telephoned Mrs. Yaro to break the news to her that he had approved
her recruitment in what critics consider a clear conflict of interest
and a violation of a provision of Nigeria’s Code of Conduct which
stipulates that “a public officer shall not put himself in a position
where his interest conflicts with his duties and responsibilities.”
Mrs.
Yaro, (whose businessman husband, Ahmed, is largely based in Kaduna but
visits Abuja regularly) assumed duties at the CBN in the first week of
September 2012 and was deployed to the Development Finance Department.
The
department then put her in charge of the bank’s Nigerian
Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System For Agricultural Lending, (NIRSAL), a
unit that attempts to fix the agricultural value chain, so that banks
can lend with confidence to the sector and, encourages banks to lend to
the agricultural value chain by offering them strong incentives and
technical assistance.
Sources
said Mrs. Yaro married Ahmed (or Shuaib, according to another source)
six years ago after her first husband, Waisu Yaro Bodinga (then an
executive director at the Nigeria Ports Authority) died in the ill-fated
ADC plane crash of 2006.
The
romance between Mrs. Yaro and Mr. Sanusi became even hotter after she
began work at the bank, with the two lovers regularly exchanging
telephone calls and text messages during work hours to profess love for
each other.
At
times, Mrs. Yaro would remain in her office far beyond close of work to
enable her to keep appointments with the CBN governor, records show.
Sometimes,
Mrs. Yaro would raise concerns about Mr. Sanusi’s other girlfriends and
mistresses (such as Sutura and Rose) and how they were blocking her
from getting the governor’s full attention, but the relationship
continued nonetheless.
Mrs.
Yaro also began to have access to confidential information known only
to top management and board of the bank, insiders say.
At
a point, one source said, she began to strategise to corner contracts
for one Goke Akinboro, the Chief Executive Officer of Lagos-based
Cellullant Limited, an information technology company. Mr. Akinboro is
also described as “very close” to Mrs Yaro.
On
March 15, 2013, the CBN lovers headed to Lagos again for another
weekend of fun. The initial plan was for the duo to fly to the nation’s
commercial capital on Saturday, March 16, returning to Abuja on Sunday.
But the trip had to be brought forward by a day after the lovers
realized that the Area Council election in Abuja was holding that
Saturday and that movement might be restricted.
Mrs. Yaro arrived Lagos on the night of March 15, and immediately checked into theRadisson Blu Anchorage Hotel on
Victoria Island. Mr. Sanusi flew from Kano to Lagos via chartered jet
on the bills of the Nigerian taxpayers. He arrived at about 11 p.m.,
stopped by his Ikoyi home, before dashing to the hotel where Mrs. Yaro
was waiting in a seductive dress in Room 23. The lovers spent that night
and the next day together in the hotel.
As
he flew into Abuja March 17 on a chartered jet, Mr. Sanusi sent a
message to Mrs. Yaro saying, “Love. Just landed in Abuja. Thank you for a
wonderful weekend.” Mrs. Yaro replied, “Alhamdulillah. I had a
wonderful weekend too. I am able to get the 3:15 flight on Arik Air.
Love you.”
But
in-between these rendezvous in Lagos, Mr. Sanusi and Mrs Yaro also
found time to get together elsewhere. They were to meet on March 11,
2013, in Makurdi but somehow Mrs Yaro could not make it to the Benue
State capital. But earlier on February 14, (Valentine’s Day), the
lovers had a good time together in Maiduguri. Although, the two of them
travelled to the city on different missions, they somehow found a way to
get together.
At
a point, Mrs Yaro voiced open frustration when Mr. Lamido delayed in
taking her calls as she tried, frantically, to track him down. “I’m
thinking that one Shuwa girl has snatched you away from me,” Mrs. Yaro
wrote in a message. “I don’t trust them (Maiduguri girls) with you.”
A
velvet-ranking figure within Nigeria’s economic and political circles,
Mr. Sanusi, is generally perceived as one of the intellectual anchors
and moral conscience of this administration. When his five-year term
expires next year, he has indicated he would not renew his contract. Mr.
Sanusi has a well-advertised ambition to become the future emir of his
native Kano, where he is already a top chieftaincy holder (Dan Maje
Kano). Dan Majen Kano, a historic title, which means Son of Emir-Maje,
is reserved for the royal family members from the Kano Habe dynasty.
A zigzag prospect to run for the Nigerian presidency is also believed to be floating in the horizon for Mr. Sanusi.
Multiple sources at both the CBN and First Bank,
where Mr. Sanusi was managing director before his appointment to the
central bank, describe the governor as an “incurable womanizer.”
“This
guy seems unable to resist anything in skirt, and it is unfortunate
that a lot of young people look up to him as an example,” one of Mr.
Sanusi’s aides in Abuja said, expressing widely held concerns in banking
circles that “It is sad that he wouldn’t even let married women be.”
Mr.
Sanusi, 51, appointed CBN Governor on June 3 2009, is a smart economist
and award-winning banker with a background in risk management.
He
holds a graduate degree in economics from the Ahmadu Bello University,
Zaria and a diploma in Sharia and Islamic Studies from the African
International University in Khartoum, Sudan. Today, Mr. Sanusi is also commonly regarded as an important voice in Islamic jurisprudence.
The Banker,
the UK-based financial magazine honoured him in 2010 as global Central
Bank Governor of the Year as well as African Central Bank Governor of
the Year. In 2011, the TIME magazine listed Mr. Sanusi in its annual
publication of 100 most influential people.
At
the African Banker Awards gala dinner held Wednesday in Morocco, Mr.
Sanusi also emerged the “2013 Africa Central Bank Governor of the Year.”
“There
is no doubt that he is a fairly effective banker,” an official of one
of Nigeria’s leading banks, who requested anonymity for fear his bank
might be targeted, told PREMIUM TIMES. “But he is a man of zero morality
despite his public posturing. It is really sad.”
Premium Times
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