Call him a showman, smooth talker, self-righteous and self-adulating gadfly, loud, intemperate, brash, aristocratically arrogant, impulsive, loose cannon, attention seeker, rabble-rouser activist and iconoclastic renegade. All these and many more fit this extroverted Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s characterisation. These are his attributes which most people will not fail to notice even from a distance. To this is the perception that he is a cerebral and fearless economist and banker.
Unfortunately, he is not that great transparent and sincere professional that he portrays himself as and have people believe. His eloquence and confidence have bowled people over to the extent of winning laurels at home and abroad. This man has perfected the act of solo drumming and trumpet blowing in self-adulation. to very gullible and long-suffering Nigerians. Sanusi used the 2007 CBN Act and personal proclivities divert attention from his other and ‘odder’ side.Subject men who immodestly portray themselves as clean and saintly and you will be shell-shocked to discover that they practise the exact opposite of what they preach most of the time. Sanusi, the suspended CBN governor falls typically into this group of holier-than-thou braggarts and cock-a-hoops.
Today a lot of Nigerians are persuaded to applaud Sanusi for being the perfect whistle-blowing messiah who is being persecuted by the President. This is a pure diversionary tactic deployed to pre-empt the President and sway public and international opinion on the plundering of over three decades of our commonwealth by successive governments. Sanusi’s rash of oscillating figures of unremitted (missing?) funds from NNPC coupled with the fact that he was on a populist mission, never working in synergy with his counterparts in the petroleum and finance ministries and NNPC is indicative of mischief of a sinisterly motivated man. Being aware that he may be under the lens he made the gambit to outsmart the Presidency and scurry the expected sentimental favour of the people and global community.
In our society where nothing is secret and confidential even at professional levels, the suspended CBN governor knew that the putrid smell from his rotten under-belly is oozing out. He flew the popular kite to mask his damning misdeeds in the CBN and the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Plc (the MINT). The man who has become a rehearsing emir in the glass edifice threw his last stone ostensibly at his boss through a ricochet from the NNPC. If a smart and sinister mischief was not at play by Sanusi certain questions need be asked – Why did it take him 19 months to discover that NNPC was not remitting proceeds of petroleum sales? Why did he fail to alert and touch base with NNPC and the two relevant ministries (petroleum and finance, i.e)? Why did he fail to explore the option of having a discreet meeting with his boss (Mr President) to hint him of his alarming ‘discovery’? Why did he choose to go to the CBN roof top? If indeed $49 billion is missing will the economy not have collapsed? A CBN governor should know best on this apocalyptic possibility!
For a loyal and responsible public servant saddled with the very important role of the country’s Banker-in-Chief should he not have dotted his I’s and crossed his T’s before raising an alarm first with his boss? Yes, there has been some rottenness in the NNPC. It pre-dates President Jonathan’s administration. Democracy has simply given us the boldness to go to town in self-expression. Only the late Afro beat genius king, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti had the audacity to be vociferous of the burgeoning rot in the petroleum sector. We gleefully called it the Fela’s “Yabis” at the time. He had his liberty curtailed under the jack-boots of the military and took scars of the serial beatings to his grave for his ‘effrontery’.
I hope that you now have a glint and hint into some of Sanusi’s antics and theatrics. The best test of the true character of a man is what he will do when nobody is watching him. Sanusi has all along pre-occupied us with his populist antics – to distract us from his true self, professional self and what he has been doing behind our backs, conveniently sequestered bythe2007 CBN Act of almost unlimited autonomy and his emperor status as both the CEO and Chairman of the CBN Board. He forgot that there is nothing like absolute power or that what goes around comes around and that the golden rule has eternal relevance and applicability. His carriage is an unmistakable depiction of arrogance. The Kano prince has never given his immediate predecessor, Professor Chukwuma Soludo credit for being the initiator of the change projects in CBN which in the real sense he was just the finisher. Most of the sweeping changes executed by the CBN were the brain child of Professor Soludo. They were already work-in-progress which Sanusi pulled to completion. While the typical Central Bank governor in other climes are silent achievers and making professional statements only once in a while, Sanusi turned himself into an activist and insider opposition politician ever grandstanding . He always threw professional decorum to the dogs. It is not surprising to closer watchers and those who should know. He has declared to many and openly too, that the CBN governorship is stop-gap job for him as he can’t wait to reclaim the throne of his grandfather as the Emir of Kano. He makes bold to declare his impatience and hunger for the Emirship even when there is a seating emir. Such unveiled and daring ambition is suspect as he displays no loyalty to his boss, the President of the country. He demands loyalty and royalty but is at odds giving one himself.
While Sanusi espouses global best practice in corporate governance he typifies the very negative and time-worn cliché – “do what I say, not what I do.” His much vaunted liberal and neutral disposition in ethnicity and religion is a farce. He is quick to brand himself a Lagos boy at every opportunity but all that is patronising. The kangaroo remains a native of Australia even if it spends a life time in the swamps of Badagry or the Bomadi creeks.
SANUSI’S RUINOUS CHAIRMANSHIP OF THE MINT
There is no place better than in the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Plc (the MINT), a subsidiary company of CBN where the suspended governor showed his true colours and bared his fangs. In the MINT, away from prying eyes and further protected by the CBN kingdom laws where he ran a parallel state, presidency and emirate, Sanusi had a luxuriant savannah to roam free. All operating corporate governance and organizational structure inherited from Soludo as Chairman were dismantled for personal and political interest. It should be noted that the extant structure inherited from Soludo was used to massively transform and revamp the comatose MINT between June 2005 and June 2009. Sanusi went on ethnic, regional and religious cleansing of the MINT ruining targeted personnel’s lives and careers and crashing a hitherto healthy and stabilized company. He introduced divide and rule, micro-management, mutual suspicion, regional exclusion, destructive rumour mongering, fractured supply chain, fear and confusion. Today the MINT is in tatters and it is everyone’s guess the anguish of Soludo on the current state of affairs of the company he once left on cruise control having taken it from ashes, like the mythical phoenix, to grace.
Against the insistence that the comatose MINT be privatised by Mallam El-Rufai ( then the DG of Bureau of Public Enterprises), Prof. Soludo opined that the MINT is a symbol of Nigeria’s sovereignty. He felt that Nigeria cannot afford to gamble with selling off its banknotes printing works. He got President Obasanjo’s nod to have the CBN acquire the MINT by taking up a controlling 77% shareholding. BPE and De La Rue (UK banknote printing giant) were also equity participants of the new MINT. As Chairman of the company Prof. Soludo swung into action to revamp the moribund company that could hardly print 30%of the CBN’s (Nigerian) banknotes requirements even with two brand new 2 lines commissioned in 2002 in Abuja and the Lagos factory. The Lagos factory (now 51 years old) has been allowed to rot into dilapidation as soon as plans were afoot to build a new factory and headquarter in the new FCT in the early 90s. The project took off in the mid-90s but suffered stagnation due to paucity of funds. It was completed up to about 99% in early 2000s by the current NSA then its MD/CEO and commissioned in 2002 but with billions of naira owed suppliers and contractors. Staff salaries and allowances were not paid as and at when due. Staff morale was on the low and ebbing further.
It was in this dismal state when Prof. Soludo took over as the Chairman of the Board in 2004. He took the patriotic step of head-hunting for Nigerians home and abroad who have proved their mettle in manufacturing in the private sector. He reasoned that the MINT is primarily a production outfit with substantial government interest but operating as a purely commercial entity with profit making objective without yearly subvention. Put simply the MINT is like any other private sector company established under the Corporate and Allied Matters Act (CAMA), and a PLC though not quoted in the NSE. Accenture Consulting was retained by CBN to head-hunt for manufacturing operations experts from the private sector. By June 2005 a Leadership Team of five from Guinness, Coca-Cola, UAC and a foremost bank was assembled for the onerous task. For effectiveness the team was made of 4 General Managers (GMs) and one CEO. The latter was the only executive on the Board. The GMs were de facto executive directors though not so recognized as they were only observers at Board meetings. The practical idea was to ensure daily shop floor presence of the GMs – to drive production and administration for optimal results and achievement of a fast-tracked turn-around of the company.
Professor Soludo’s MINT Board was very professional with balanced regional representation. The MINT leadership team working with Accenture Consulting’s corporate governance template achieved 35% productivity step change without a kobo extra investment within the first month. From then on the turn-around team never looked back as MINT fortunes went on a meteoric projectile on sustained basis. All debts (both foreign and local) were re-negotiated and paid off. Not only did arrears of staff salaries and allowances get paid, conditions of service were improved upon.
The late President Yar’Adua in February, 2008 in a meeting with the Board and management of the MINT at the Villa passed a vote of confidence on the company and CBN for the feat recorded. He urged the company to invest further on a new line to comfortably meet CBN banknotes requirement and utilize any surplus capacity and its now proven efficiency to venture into printing for other African countries. Such was the success story of the new MINT that on a Sunday 18 November, 2005 President Obasanjo paid an unscheduled visit to the Abuja factory accompanied by visiting Ghanaian President John Kuffor to show case and market the MINT. In 2007 the MINT made a profit of N4billion. Year on year it printed banknotes in billions of singles, a feat never achieved in over 5 decades of the company’s existence then.
2009: ENTER SANUSI, THE MINT FREE-FALL, POLITICS OF REGIONAL EXCLUSION, SUCCESSION TREACHERY, INTRIGUES AND BRAZEN IMPUNITY
In June 2009 Sanusi inherited a stabilized and profitable MINT on cruise mode. Prof Soludo’s target of zero importation of printed naira notes by end of 2008 had been met. The MINT was chasing 3 billion pieces of banknotes per annum mark. This feat was audacious and with confidence on the management’s performance an additional production line was planned to be sited in Abuja factory.
There is no gainsaying the fact that Sanusi liked what he saw of the new-improved and profitable MINT printing and minting all the nation’s money to the extent that by his second month as governor of CBN he became impatient with the management for not yet reflecting his name (signature) on the banknotes. He had threatened that the MINT management should know that another governor was in charge and must make haste to show his name on the banknotes. He barked out the warning without regard to the volume of work-in-progress before he took office and the technical process of effecting the change of signature on banknotes. It was a case of morning shows the day – intemperance as a Sanusi’s management style!
Sanusi met a progressively growing balance sheet size of the company. For no altruistic reasons he cashed in on this to execute a skewed agenda meant to please his region of origin and achieve his royal ambition mileage. He saw that though there is a provision for the position of three executive directors (EDs) they were vacant. He increased it to four. There were four GMs already doing the work of the executive directors for five years – a case of working as elephants and being called ants and earning ants pay. Having excellently performed the task of turning around the company the logical expectation was the promotion and re-designation of the long-suffering private sector- driven GMs in a quasi-government setting. But no! Sanusi saw the lacuna as an opportunity to bring in his personal friends and family affiliates in dire need of rehabilitation. A kangaroo recruitment process was put in place by Sanusi. Nexton, a management consulting firm was contracted to advertise, shortlist and ‘recruit’ the EDs. Even managers promoted to Assistant General Managers (AGMs) competed with their bosses for what could have logically been their inheritance had Sanusi got any milk of fairness devoid of ulterior motives. The ambitious AGMs who were encouraged to attempt to ‘dethrone’ their benevolent bosses were from Sanusi’s north-west. At the end of the pre-determined process only two of the four GMs made it to the coveted EDs position. The two unlucky GMs were humiliatingly left in the cold with the only consolation of still having a job to hold on to. Astaff of the recruiting agency was godly enough to privately apologize to the unlucky duo hinting that their hands were tied.
Two friends of Sanusi – one with an ambition to be an emir of a popular emirate in the north-west and former GM in a moribund and rested government-owned telecom company and the second with a filial link with one of the wives of Sanusi and an out-of-favour former MD of an important Federal Government agency in the aviation sector were brought in with impunity on June 1st, 2011 as Executive Directors. This gambit of Sanusi radically changed the configuration of the executive management of the MINT with a political and regional tilt albeit negatively and unhealthily. Of the four EDs only one was a southerner. He happened to be the monkey and donkey of the organization being in charge of manufacturing as ED (operations), the core of the company’s mainstay. The rest three EDs are all from the core north. They dash off to their states at every opportunity being in close proximity to Abuja. Executive truancy was their nature.
The only southerner – the ED (operations) incidentally happen to be the longest serving executive in the team. He had worked as GM of both factories (Abuja and Lagos) setting up winning production templates of the company. He was also the team lead and innovations manager in banknotes designs.
For strange and suspicious reasons Sanusi kept the MD/ CEO on overtime without a letter of tenure extension or communication to the generality of staff well beyond 2010. In another strange and suspicious move in July 2012 Sanusi broke the operations directorate into two – Abuja and Lagos operations. The hitherto ED(Operations) and the only southerner in the EXCO who had only recently relocated to the Abuja head office after a two and half year stint as GM- Lagos was asked to relocate back to Lagos yet again without regard for the need for this man’s work life balance.
Sanusi has by this curious transfer divided the company’s operations along regional lines. Traditionally all EXCO members and the MD are head office (Abuja) based for effective team working and inclusiveness.
By this move also the GMs and the ED-Abuja operations were all northerners just as those in Lagos were all southerners. For all intents and purposes the only southern ED was effectively side-lined and sent out of sight (Abuja) by Sanusi.
It is important to note that at the general Board level the members of the southern stock kept depleting without replacement with the arrival of Sanusi as the Chairman. At a point in time during Soludo’s era there was a regional balance in number. As at April 2013 the Board had only 2 southerners. With the retirement of Mr Tunde Lemo recently the MINT Board has only one southerner ( Professor Sam Olofin) left. The MINT EXCO is an all north affair. Meetings and official transactions are conducted in Hausa language. The once healthy Nigerian family flair fled from the MINT as soon as Sanusi came on board with other Nigerians alienated. These appeared to happen unchallenged by the rest of the Board members because they are all Soludo’s Board members whose tenure have expired and they have become despots and will be yes men to Sanusi in order to retain their membership. In addition they were CBN Board members and some Deputy Governors who cannot be seen as opposing Sanusi’s decision. In the final analysis Sanusi had it all worked out to be he who must be obeyed. Since April 3, 2013 the MINT has been operating with an EXCO of all northerners including his Personal Assistant (PA on MINT Affairs) who he used to displace the GM of the ink factory GM to Lagos currency factory.
THE FINAL COUP TO SWEEP OFF ALL TRACES OF SOUTHERN EXECUTIVE PRESENCE
Security breaches are not new to the MINT in all its over 50 years history. What is new is the strange attitude of the CEO towards its mitigation. Following a breach in September, 2012 in Lagos factory the CEO under whose special purview is the company’s Business Risk and Security function exclusively was placed on indefinite suspension. This was because he was economical with the facts of the case when he briefed the Chairman, Sanusi. Suspended was also the head of security of Lagos factory (a junior manager) and the overall head of security (an AGM) of the company in the head office.
In a suspicious twist the ED – Lagos operations (who has for years ventured beyond his bound of duty out of concern for the breaches and commitment without the support of the CEO who appeared complicit having been told to drop disciplinary proceedings on security breaches which he instituted against the security head of Lagos a year (August 2011) earlier; even sending emissaries to beg) was threatened and forced to resign his appointment along with the CEO on April, 2013. This development was a big irony. This ED, the only southerner who Sanusi had only 8 months earlier banished to the south was never sent on suspension because the issue at stake was security breaches which he alone had been fighting without the support of the CEO who is responsible for the function in the first place.
Without instituting any disciplinary hearing Sanusi on April 3, 2013 in a fit of rage read a riot act at a Board meeting asking him to resign along with the CEO and Lagos head of security within 12 hours. The head office-based company head of security (a northerner) who had been on suspension for 5 months was asked to return to work.
The ED’s offense or culpability in any act was not made known to him. He was not suspended like the others. It is unheard of that an ED of a company is kicked out without notice or due process of fair ( or even unfair) hearing as if he were a casual staff. This happen to be an ED that was called the ‘life wire of the company’ by Board members on account of his commendable performance on the job over the years. This is the height of impunity and power intoxication that had characterised Sanusi’s Chairmanship of the MINT board. In a further demonstration of this style of management and insensitivity this southern ED forced to resign never received an official acknowledgement of receipt of the resignation wherein his entitlements could have been stated. Consequently this symbol of MINT rejuvenation and turnaround was not paid a kobo entitlement. It is a sad and uninspiring tale of a man who deployed his vast experience in manufacturing operations management garnered from 3 multinational companies in over 20 years to churn out billions of pieces of banknotes with ease with the same machines that could not produce optimally in the two factories before the arrival of his turn-around team. That he was an MD/CEO high prospect of the company was generally acknowledged and assumed especially with the high relevance of his function and consistent performance track record over the past years. He was equally envied and soon became the man to be pulled down even by Sanusi who was hell bent on installing one of his own as the CEO by hook or crook. If the breaches in Lagos was the kernel of the issue, in other companies without frivolous corporate governance this victimised ED could have been on the side of the Board holding the factory management vis-a vis the Factory GM and heads of his departments etc to account. The factory day to day management were left untouched and are not as much as queried by the Board. The stealing syndicate will continue to perpetrate the act in full knowledge and belief that heads will only roll at the remote head office and not necessarily where the crime takes place. This illogicality is only workable under the intemperate and frivolous Chairmanship of Sanusi set on the mission of taking out the strongest contender to the position of MD/CEO. This ED was the target of ceaseless avalanche of death threats that peaked between February and July 2010 when they blatantly sent him an SMS taunting him that though he had finally clinched the MD position they will be on the watch to deal with him. In those days ( for over one year) this ED lived from one derelict inn to the other and a sports centre in Lagos Mainland to keep off harms way. The turn of events seem to give credence to the threats.
Even till this day after one year Sanusi’s treachery has not ended as this victim is still being hounded. And to make good his plans and in furtherance of his royal patronage he made his emir-in-waiting (just like himself) friend and the ED-Corporate services the “ Acting Managing Director (On Temporary Basis) ”since November 2012 when the incumbent went on indefinite suspension.Till this day this green horn in the MINT EXCO is still playing that role with the company’s fortune on a free fall under his incompetent watch.
Sanusi not done with his agenda of Northernization and Operation Recapture the MINT made another deft move in late December, 2013. He had always maintained that the MINT must run like a private sector company since it does not get any yearly appropriation from the federal government. However in negation of this preachment at December,2013 Board meeting he invoked a civil service rule that applies to the directorate cadre of staff. This policy was never in operation in the MINT.
By a fiat he asked all staff from AGM and above who have been on the rank for upward of 8 years and did not move to the next rank to exit the services of the company with effect from the first week of May, 2014. This is a four month notice. His friend and acting CEO soon after called a meeting of the 7 affected managers. He asked them to take their exit with immediate effect. The managers in a show of courage demanded to be know why they were being stampeded out of work after putting commendable efforts in service. They had their way but may still have to go on April, 30th, 2014, the due date. By this move six Christians and one Muslim were caught in the second wave of forced exit through Sanusi’s impunity. The two surviving GMs from the original 2005 Leadership Team head-hunted by Soludo (who could not make it to EDs position having been displaced by Sanusi’s two lackeys) are now to bow out by force. One of the planned outcomes that was achieved was the total extermination of any Ibo from the rank of AGM and above. Two of them were affected. There is no more senior Ibo man or woman in the MINT. There is no hope of any rising up to that level in the next 5 to 6 years. Sanusi seemed to be in a hurry to do all these to beat his own tenure expiration. All vestiges of Soludo’s turn-around team is extinct in the company. It is worthy of note that three AGMs from the old Benue-Plateau axis were also axed by this latest move at the twilight of Sanusi’s tenure. One each fell off from Plateau, Benue and Nassarawa states because in his reckoning these are inconsequential fringe northerners – the middle-Belters! In his systematic north takeover bid there has been placement of his cronies in strategic functions in the different layers of the company’s organogram.
In 2011, Sanusi’s PA was used to displace the GM of the ink factory. This GM from Akwa Ibom state was sentenced to MINT Robin Island (Lagos Factory) to await the crocodiles to finish him off but fortunately he is due for retirement by July 2014. The powerful SA to Sanusi on the MINT operates from three offices – in Tawada factory, MINT head office and the CBN governor’s office. He has three official cars, one from each of the offices.
In this diabolical scheme and game of Sanusi nobody seemed to know what was next or dared to ask questions. The southern and middle belt elements (staff) were being systemically cleaned and cleared out of the MINT with the strategy of ensuring that the prospect of any one from those parts of the country reaching very senior positions in the next ten years is remote and grim. This will return the MINT to the status quo – northern domination and management as it was before 2005.
In the 50 years existence of the MINT it was only two times (1981 and 2005) that a southerner ascended the MD/CEO position. There has been tokenist representation of southern Chairmen of the Board since the inception of the company in 1963. With the exception of Sanusi and the DG of BPE the current non-executive Board members have overstayed their tenure. The executive directors will finish their tenure by December 31st 2014. This is the reason why the Board could not muster the courage to ask the immediate past MD/CEO to go at the expiration of his tenure in June 2010. He did an extra two and a half years and was already on his way to a ten year stretch without any official notification of the MINT community. The Board turned a blind eye to this corporate abuse because they too ought to have left the stage. The current Board was inherited from Professor Soludo. It suited Sanusi’s plan as they were mostly from the CBN Board where he is Chairman and CEO. In addition they are mostly northerners with the exception of Prof. Sam Olofin. At the CBN Board MINT matters are never discussed. The MINT is run privately by Sanusi and Alhaji Suleiman Barau ( CBN’s DG-Corporate Services) with the assistance of the all-powerful Sanusi’s SA on MINT matters who doubles also as the GM of the MINT’s ink factory, Tawada Nigeria Ltd.
In this MINT subsidiary company the Board membership was expanded to accommodate another northerner, Alhaji Nda and later Mohammed K.Umar, Director of Currency Operations who were used to displace the Acting Director of Currency Operations, Mr Charles Olorunda, a Yoruba.
The impunity, regional cleansing and administrative recklessness of Sanusi in the MINT in the last one year must be condemned. His decisions most of which bother on irregularities and diabolical schemes that have put careers and lives of targeted personnel in peril and jeopardy should be reversed immediately especially now that the nation is keen on addressing the unity question. Sanusi’s numerous misdemeanour in the MINT are too numerous and obvious.
Since June 2009 when Sanusi became the Chairman of the MINT Board virtually in proxy-executive capacity the fortunes of the company has taken on a free fall year on year. The company is presently worse than it was pre- June 2005 when Soludo assembled the crack team of energetic young manufacturing technocrats from the private sector to turn around the comatose banknote printing outfit. Sanusi rather than building on the successes of Professor Soludo went on rampage. Instead of printing money he has been playing politics of southerners (and lately as his tenure winds up) and middle-belters exclusion as if that was his mandate in the MINT. Board meetings are far and in between. He arrives at the few in a year with his mind already made up on what he wants to happen having had private meetings with his clique and errand boys in the MINT. His Chairmanship of the MINT Board revolves around who owns the MINT?; who runs the MINT now and how will the core north maintain a permanent management stranglehold of the company? And of course how he will make the best out of the MINT for himself now and (with his structures in place), much longer when he is gone from the stage.
Before June 2009, the MINT manages the importation and supervision of CBN appointed overseas printers of Nigerian banknotes called buffer stock being the expert on its behalf once it has placed orders. Under Sanusi this over 40 years arrangement was jettisoned. CBN handles it now by itself. The reason is suspect.
Order for the printing of banknotes used to be given to the MINT for the following year during quarter 3 (Q3)of the current year. For instance order for 2015 will be given to the MINT in Q4, 2014.
This makes for advance planning especially in early commencement of the supply chain activities for the overseas purchased items which form the bulk of the production inputs. Sanusi’s CBN governorship stopped this procedure. Under him yearly orders for banknotes printing are made late April of a current production year. Under this new regime MINT runs out of banknotes printing papers and other high security and specialized consumables to the extent that by mid-year the production pipeline becomes empty. Effectively the MINT has only about 9 months of active production annually since 2010.
To make for unhindered supply chain and due to the capital intensive nature of banknotes printing, traditionally every year the CBN makes 40% advance payment of the total value of the year’s order to the MINT. This enables the MINT to place order for off shore inputs. Under Sanusi this advance payment was reduced to 15% in keeping with Federal Government directives.
However, even with this huge reduction the company is always taken through pains of protracted delays in the release of the advance payment. In 2010 the company received the advance payment in September (Q3). Under Sanusi payments for banknotes printed is always unduly delayed. It is a case of the supplier not being paid for goods already delivered on time. Under Sanusi too, the MINT vaults had frequent overflow of printed money stacked without boxes from CBN to box and deliver them. This became so chronic that for the first ever the MINT had to award contracts to make wooden boxes at extra operating cost. In all, finished products were always tied down with security implications and revenue denied. The consequence MINT in Sanusi’s five years was always cash-strapped with also higher operating cost. With spiralling exchange rates, inflation and attendant higher operating cost the CBN bluntly refused to adjust the price of the banknotes as demanded by the MINT. The CBN determines what it pays to the MINT for printing of its banknotes ironically irrespective of the producer’s (MINT) cost profile.
THE KILLER LOAN
Two years ago the company took on-shore and off-shore loan to finance a brand new production line in Abuja factory worth over N6 billion. This line was meant to markedly increase the overall production capacity of the company by 25 -30% from June, 2013.
As at April, 2014 the project is far from completion as even the civil works are still in progress. The bespoke printing machines and support equipment being supplied by the Swiss firm, KBA Notasys SA is rotting away and may be installed while the civil and electro-mechanical works are still in progress in utter project management confusion with perilous outcome. In the meantime the Japanese production machines that make up the two production lines in Abuja factory and other supporting production infrastructure commissioned in 2002 have been without a comprehensive overhaul intervention. The machines it was learnt are packing up one after the other, some irreversibly due to engineering fatigue.
Poor line utilization and mechanical efficiency of the lines have become worrisome. Quality of the prints and the finishing of the banknotes is getting poorer by the day necessitating the CBN to install quality inspection machines for the finished banknotes in the two factories, a case of medicine after death.
The story is the same in the Lagos factory. The 51 years old facility was abandoned as soon as the new Abuja factory and head office factory idea was floated in the early 90s. The buildings and all the facilities are in terrible states of dilapidation. The workers operate under inclement condition both in the factories and offices. It is a practical museum and junk yard of banknotes printing history in Nigeria. In May 2007 President Obasanjo commissioned a state-of-the-art production line in the midst of a clearing of junks. The line now 7 years old has also not been overhauled since its commissioning. Being machines of digital technology the depreciation of the machines has been exponential especially because they are used full steam. All overhaul propositions meant to receive Sanusi’s attention have been bogged down by bureaucracy while the machines are steadily and surely grinding to a halt.
MINT BACK TO SQUARE ONE
Since 2009 the MINT lost momentum and rhythm as fierce bureaucracy, boot-licking, politics and fear took over MINT management because of Sanusi’s intemperate leadership style. His friend, a green horn, who he installed as “Acting MD/CEO On Temporary Basis” since November, 2012 gets stupefied easily by the challenges of the job. Lacking in initiative as the supply chain lead being the ED-Corporate Services he always runs to Sanusi for every little day to day and routine decision making. Unfortunately, Sanusi is never always there as he is ever junketing in the higher priority duties of CBN and his royal ambition liaisons. In recent times he seems to be competing with Mr President in Chieftaincy matters. He visited the Alafin of Oyo draped in his royal masquerade robes a day after the President did the same. It is no wonder that going to work in those ‘lagbaja’ robes regularly he has been called the Emir of the CBN.
There has been so much intrigues, brazen impunity, regional cleansing and politicking by Sanusi in the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Plc (the MINT). The company is now worse than Professor Soludo met it when driven by patriotism, challenge and can-do spirit sourced four men and a woman from the private sector, a crack-team to turn around the then comatose company. He achieved the mission with great results to show for the collective efforts. Enter Sanusi in 2009, and the company went on a fast rewind motion. Up till the time of his suspension CBN has gone back to the inglorious days of massive banknotes importation as the MINT has started under-performing again. What with incompetence in present Sanusi-inspired team and production grinding to a halt with three dying production lines.
The multi-billion naira Abuja factory new line projectalmost one year behind schedule is presenting the MINT with a huge debt burden. It is only a question of a short time to see the hitherto revamped MINT go the way of other failed strategic state-owned companies like the Nigerian Airways and NITEL – a monumental disaster, no thanks to the all-knowing man of bravado and iconoclasm, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi. If he claims to have done well in the CBN he failed woefully in the MINT!
MR PRESIDENT SANITIZE THIS HOUSE
The President should quickly beam its search light to see the trail of destruction, disaster and politicization of the MINT under Sanusi’s watch. A strategic institution like the MINT where the nation’s money is printed should be insulated from the high wired politics, the type Sanusi personified as Chairman of the Board of Directors. Undoing most of what he did in the MINT in the last two years is the right way to go in the best interest of Nigeria.
EMEFIELE MUST BRACE UP FOR THE MINT CHALLENGE
The CBN Governor designate should be taking briefs on the MINT now because he will be shocked to suddenly immerse himself in a CBN subsidiary company, a whirlpool he may not be considering a major concern in the discharge of his duties. He will be in for a big surprise. The company in its current state is a handful.
***Idoko is an Abuja-based Public Affairs Analyst
