Sanusi's Sack: Why, Abati? Why?

Better to die ten thousand deaths,
Than wound my honour.
Joseph Addison, Cato, A Tragedy (1713), Act I, scene 4.

I am sad. I am really sad. I am for a man who used to be seen by many Nigerians as a beacon of hope. I am sad for Reuben Abati, Special Adviser to Nigeria’s President on Media and Publicity, because what he did yesterday meant he lost the last vestige of respect some Nigerians might still have had for him. It meant he has now sunk so low to the deepest level of ignominy a person can sink to. When I saw Abati on TV yesterday explaining the government's decision to suspend Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi from his position as the Governor of Nigeria's Central Bank, I felt pity for him. I felt pity for a man who has become a captive to his employers; a man who has found it absolutely impossible to wriggle himself free from the clutches of his employers because of his role as the one with the unenviable task of defending the indefensible and selling the unsellable to the Nigerian populace. I felt pity for him because I believed in his heart of heart, Abati knew his explanations were unconvincing and Nigerians would not be sucked in by his mendacity - except of course if he has totally sold his soul to the gods at the Rock.

While addressing State House correspondents at the Presidential Villa yesterday,

Abati claimed that Sanusi was suspended based on allegations of financial recklessness, violation of due process and another bothering on the mandate of the CBN but this claim will not wash with Nigerians. Why did the government have to suspend Sanusi when the furore created by his allegation of missing fund was yet to clear? Why will a government that took four months before sacking a minister who had been indicted of financial misappropriation by the country's House of Representatives quickly relieve another person who alerted the nation to another case of corruption? (I hope some of us still remember the recent sacking of Festus Odimegwu?) Please can someone tell me who the advisers of Mr. President are? What has become of the government's much vaunted anti-corruption war? By this action, government has unwittingly made a hero out of Sanusi. In fact, I believe the government has practically kick started his presidential or vice-presidential candidature.

Why does Abati continue to stay in a government that has made his job so difficult? Why is he refusing to toe the path of honour? Or is it that once an individual gets into government, it becomes impossible to get out? I do not think so. I think it is because of lack or loss of the value of honour in our society. I almost concluded that our society lacks the value of honour but I remembered that we were told, growing up, that centuries ago in Yoruba land, kings would commit suicide rather than lose their honour. I think it is appropriate then to say that we have lost our value or sense of honour and that is why people in our society find it difficult to walk away from positions that will cause them to compromise their values and good name. That is why a word like ‘hara-kiri' is difficult for us to understand and that is why we justify our actions of dishonour. Instead, what we understand as hara-kiri is going the establishment/government, which is what happened to

Festus Odimegwu and has now happened to Lamido Sanusi. The kind of people we need in Nigeria, and Africa, are people like Sanusi, people who are not afraid to commit our own version of hara-kiri.

I am ending this post by asking this question: Why, Abati? Why?