Nigeria: Sanusi - When Private Life Becomes a Public Affair

On June 2, 2013, Premium Times published an exclusive report on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)'s Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi. The story entitled "Sanusi Lamido, his CBN Mistress and their Sweetheart Escapades", which graphically tells the story of the illicit, extra-marital love affair between the CBN Governor, and Mrs. Maryam Waisu Yaro, an Assistant Director at the CBN, is generating mixed reactions. Some of the "early responders" condemn Premium Times for poke-nosing into the private affair and love life of the CBN Governor, even insinuating that Premium Times is possibly hounding the CBN Governor for nursing the ambition to become the Emir of Kano or the President of Nigeria. Other commentators insist that Premium Times acted in order by holding up the private life of the CBN Governor for public scrutiny, and that by publishing this story Premium Times has not transmuted into a tabloid. There are some particularly cynical remarks that suggest that the Goodluck Jonathan Administration or persons within the Administration had employed Premium Times to harangue and damage the person of the CBN Governor and undermine his continuity in office. And there are some views which ridiculously suggest that Premium Times is being used by those affected by the anti corruption work of the CBN Governor in the banking sector. The suggestion that Premium Times is running an errand of witch-hunt for the Jonathan Administration in publishing the story is

disingenuous. As far as we know, the CBN Governor is part and parcel of the Goodluck Jonathan Administration. He was appointed by the President ( and deemed appointed by this President); he is on the President's Economic Management Team; and with Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala-the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, he was a vocal and fanatical advocate of the removal of oil subsidy way back in 2011 and 2012, warning that if oil subsidy was not totally removed, the Nigerian economy would, in no time, collapse. So ardent, combative and pugnacious is he in his public positions that he did not hesitate to lampoon Olusegun Obasanjo as "a good farmer but a bad economist" when the former President argued against the CBN Governor's insistence on introducing a single five thousand naira note denomination in 2012. continued