These accusations and counter-accusations are really getting intense and
worrisome now. Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II has denied claims that
he gave the office of the embattled former National Security Adviser
Sambo Dasuki N40 billion while he served as the Governor of the Central
Bank of Nigeria. He denied the claims in an interview with The Cable.
“This is completely untrue. In the first place, I understand the laws of
money laundering. And it is a criminal offence. The central bank is the
chief regulator charged with ensuring we put an end to money
laundering. This is partly why we started our cashless Nigeria project
and why I started the BVN project. I would never authorize that amount
of cash to be moved to the office of the NSA or to anyone even if it was
in their account.
I do not know where they are getting these strange stories. I was
removed from the CBN in February 2014, and to the best of my knowledge,
the EFCC is probing disbursements allegedly made made in late 2014 and
early 2015 before the general elections, if indeed they happened. I find
it difficult to believe that this could happen in the CBN that I know
but we have to wait and see what the investigations come out with.
Certainly whoever is linking me to this did not even bother to look at
the dates of the alleged transactions.
I know nothing about them,
period. We never gave cash to anybody. If we did we disclosed it in
published accounts under CSR. Our interventions, be this to educational
institutions or security services, took the form of clearly identified
projects or specified procurement, done through well laid-down
procedures, including competitive bidding, award of contracts, and
collection of no-objection certificate from the due process office.
We
did not give cash to anybody. The total amount disbursed by the CBN on
capital projects in my five years was N55 billion. And this included
contracts for CBN branches and our CSR interventions mainly in the
universities and secondary schools. How can anyone suggest that we gave
N40 billion to ONSA?” he said
