Sanusi: A Demand for Ogugureba Banking

Sanusi: A Demand for Ogugureba Banking
By Sam Onimisi
When my article titled Sanusi and Sharia @ CBN.com was published on February 27, 2011, I received several text messages from many readers who reacted based on their religious beliefs and ethnic nationality and a few on what may be described as neutral ground. My intention was to draw the attention of Sanusi to the fact that he was the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, and as such, that his policies and innovations must reflect the secular or multi-religious nature of Nigeria. In other words, I wanted him to know that a husband of two or more wives cannot afford to be biased or patently partisan unless he wants to set the whole house on fire.
Since the publication some five months ago, there has been an avalanche of reaction from other readers and writers for or against Sanusi’s brand of non – interest banking which to all intents and purposes, has been turned into Islamic Banking. A sponsored reaction sought to lay the blame on Prof. Charles Soludo, Sanusi’s precedessor at the Central Bank as the author of Islamic Banking. No one can vouch for Soludo because he has kept quiet in the face of the accusation or insinuation. Who knows, it was not impossible for Soludo to have attempted to secure a second term in office, by packaging or re-packaging non-interest banking as Islamic banking as a bait to win President Umaru Yar’adua heart. But even if it was so, the gambit failed just as it was not made public by Soludo. The appointment of Sanusi was an opportunity to turn non-interest banking to Islamic banking. To say that this was President Yar’adua’s intention is untenable if only because the late President cannot now defend himself. However, the zeal and speed with which Sanusi is pursuing and implementing the Islamic banking project is suggestive of a planned programme of action by an interested hierarchy of a religious group. This is because all cries of objection or calls for moderation has fell on Sanusi’s death ears, as he remain heady and unyielding. Unless he has been quietly advised by his Muslim brothers, no public evidence is available to prove that any substantial Islamic leader has tried to dissuade Sanusi from his perilious course. On that basis, it may be assumed that Lamido Sanusi’s courage is derived from the backing of most Muslims – which is not illegitimate since he is one of their own. However, it must here be restated that I am not and I believe no Christian or Animist is against Islamic banking.
What non-Muslim Nigerians are saying is that if there is a mortal need for Islamic banking, it must be left to Muslims to establish one for themselves and at their own cost. It is the contention of non-Mulisms that if the Government of the Federation must establish an Islamic Banking, there must also be an Ecclesiastical Banking and a Shango or Ogugureba Banking for both Christians and Animists. In addition, if a Sharia Council is needed at the Central Bank of Nigeria, there must also be its equivalent for non-Muslims. For the avoidance of doubt, this country is not a Muslim, a Christian or Animist country. It is a multi-religious secular one, and any one who ignores this fact has a sinister agenda for the country. This fact is what appears to be lost on Sanusi and his ilks, and which is the bone of contention. Is it a wonder that there are people in this country who pretends not to know that Nigeria is a multi-religious polity?
It was General Ibrahim Babangida who took Nigeria into the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), but it is the same man who later enacted the Banking and other Financial Institution Act, (BOFIA)1991 and he ensured that religious or secterian terms are avoided. If the OIC was an attempt to Islamize Nigeria via the backdoor, it failed although at the cost of many lives and the job of Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe in 1987. In 1997, a conference of Muslim intellectuals was held in Zaria during which the virtues of Sharia law were propounded not only as an excellent divine law, but also as a desirable basis of governance. Little wonder that when some participants of that conference became governors two years later in 1999, the first thing they did was to institute political Sharia system of government – which triggered violent riots in many parts of the North. If the Sharia law was also to Islamize Nigeria, the attempt failed woefully at the cost of thousands of lives and billions of naira in lost property.
It is not enough to claim that Islamic Banking is being practiced in Britain or some other Christian countries. Those countries have different cultures and motive and are at a higher level of governance than Nigeria. Besides, it is yet to be proved the quality or quantity of what value the system has added to the economy of those countries. More importantly, the most Islamic country on earth is Saudi Arabia, the home of Prophet Muhammed and of Mecca and Medina, but the economy of that country is not based on Islamic banking but on normal and universal banking system – even if there is a trickle of religious banking practice. So, what is the motive of the likes of Sanusi in foisting religious banking on Nigeria? In answering this question, we must permit Sanusi Lamido Sanusi to speak for himself. In doing so, and in addition to the numerous speeches he has made in defense of Sharia Banking, he should be made to speak on the basis of his beliefs and his preferences or his background and values. Now, hear Lamido Sanusi “The solution to the problem of Nigeria, it would seem, lies not in the attempt to further isolate the Fulbe… but in their incorporation and appropriation as key elements of governance. If anything at all is learnt from the state of this nation since Babangida, it is that Nigerians have proven themselves incapable of managing their affairs without the guiding hand of the much-hated “Fulani Oligarchy”. What this implies is that Fulanis like Sanusi are the guidian angels needed by Nigeria as the other ethnic groups in Nigeria are incapable of ruling themselves. In the same breath, Sanusi denied the Fulani’s claim to divine right of leadership of Nigeria when he said: “The Fulanis do not hold that they have a ‘birth right’ to rule Nigeria. They do not believe that leadership or politics are in their genes. However, it is in their culture. They have been culturally programmmed, generation after generation, to imbibe the best spirits of what makes good leadership, to a far greater extent than competing cultures.” The question we need to ask Mallam Sanusi is: when did we request for the guiding hands of the Fulani, and why must it be foisted on us? Unless, of course, it is assumed or believed by the ilks of Sanusi that Nigeria belongs to the Fulani only.
However, let us allow Sanusi to conclude his treatise on the excellence of Fulani culture as against the inferiority of other competing cultures. “With due respect to other nationalities in Nigeria, the evidence of history confirms that the Sokoto Caliphate…… represented the model of the highest level of civilisation found in what is now called Nigeria”. Finally, Sanusi said that “it is evidently convenient to ignore one hundred years of history before colonial victory, the establishment of a Caliphate, a governmental structure worthy of respect and an administration with clear division of responsibilities, grassroots control, economic programme, a judiciary, universal Islamic culture, diplomatic links and proliferation of Arabic as the language of scholarship and public policy.”
Mark you, Sanusi said what he said some eleven years ago when he was a relative young manager at the United Bank of Africa. Now that he is the governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, he is eminently placed to impose Sharia law on Nigeria through Islamic Banking.We can now discern why Sanusi changed the Nigerian languages he met on our currencies to that of Arabic and why he considers Islamic Banking as superior to all others. The jihadist and the indecent haste with which Sanusi is implementing the Islamic Banking is a source of fear to non-Muslims. The fear is that since it is going to be an exclusive religious affairs, it could be used as a channel of funding the Boko Haram, the Tala Kato and similar groups – using public funds to achieve Islamization and political control of the country - through the back door. This is the real fear, given the Islamic fundamentalist inclination of Sanusi Lamido Sanusi - the quintessential Fulbe Muslim. With Sharia Council at the Central Bank, there must be an Ecclesiastical and Ajinidivi Councils at Sanusi’s Central Bank, period!