The Vanguard Man of the Year 1st: Sanusi Lamido Sanusi
Special Reports Jan 1, 2011 ….Controversy personified, a bundle of courage and an enigma

By Omoh Gabriel
Long after he would have left office as governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi will have a lot of explanations to make to Nigerians and non-Nigerians alike on some of his actions and statements in office, especially in the outgone year.

A few will suffice for this prologue:inability of the banks to give out loans to businesses largely on account of fear of Sanusi; the consequential damage to the economy; woes allegedly brought to the five banks which Sanusi claimed to have rescued, by the new managements he appointed for them; his controversial indictment of the National Assembly for appropriating to itself 25% of the nation’s resources annually;and his deafening silence to the counter allegation by the leadership of the legislative that the apex bank’s budget is even in excess of that he claimed the National Assembly spends.

Add to that his recent threat that more former bank MDs would be jailed for corruption when in fact their cases are still being heard.

Sanusi’s critics are legion and so are his admirers. Whatever opinion you may hold about him, it is clear that he, more than any other Nigerian, has influenced the news, for good or ill, this year.

He beats to the second position the immediate past governor of Lagos State,Asiwaju Bola Tinubu,while Wikileaks as personified by Jules Assange comes third.
-Editor

Even without his November 2010 Igbinedion University, Okada convocation lecture that sparked the controversy over the pressure being piled on the nation’s economy by the huge overhead cost of the National Assembly, it would have been difficult to deny Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, governor of the Central Bank, CBN our-man-of-the-year award.

Truly, this aristocrat has restored substantial sanity to the banking sector such that, today, bankers have to think twice in taking lending decisions.

Truly, businessmen/women and customers are wary of taking loans without paying back.

But truly too, businesses are collapsing because they can’t assets loans; and fingers are pointing at some of the executives appointed by him to manage the banks he claimed to have rescued, for corruption possibly worst than the previous executives.

Yet, Sanusi carries on to the applause of some Nigerians and hisses of others almost in equal measure.

To some he is a phenomena, to others he is just a ruthless and vindictive opportunist. The low, the high, the mighty and powerful have all felt his presence. He is the only spike in the Umaru Yar’ Adua now Jonathan administration.