Boko Haram: Tension over $6.7m donation to 'select' victims

Fresh tension is mounting in Nigeria following revelations that the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Lamido Sanusi, had made a donation of $6.7 million (N100 million) to victims of Boko Haram bombings in the northern city of Kano.

The governor has been criticised by notable human rights defenders as well as socio-cultural groups that since the Boko Haram killings started over a year ago, no such donations had been made to the predominantly Christian victims of the Islamist sect attacks.

The controversial donation, seen as compensation, has further threatened the fragile co-existence between Christians and Muslims, just as it has been denounced as illegal, given that the governor has no statutory powers to so dole out tax payers money.

Last week Mr Sanusi, presented a N100 million cheque to the Kano State Deputy Governor, Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, during a condolence visit to the Kano Government House.

Mr Sanusi explained that the donation was part of CBN’s contribution to assist the state government to alleviate the suffering of the families and the direct victims of the recent Boko-Haram bomb attacks in the state.

“We are here to commiserate with the government and people of the state on the recent violent incident that claimed the lives and properties of victims and present the contribution of the bank to the state. The incident, from all indications, has deeply shocked the country and the world at large. Our prayer is that Almighty Allah will grant those who lost their lives mercy and comfort their families,” said Mr Sanusi.

Describing the gesture as “selective sympathy” and another body language in support of religious massacre in Nigeria, human rights activist Hope Osadalor of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR) said the action was tantamount to urinating on the mass graves of Christian victims of Boko Haram bombings.

A good answer

“The writing is very clear on the wall. Day and night, well-meaning people, including Muslims and Christians, are busy working for peace; meanwhile others are in the shadows sabotaging every peace effort. Since the Central Bank did not make  any donation to the victims and families of the hundreds of innocent people who had been  murdered in cold blood in Borno, Yobe, Bauchi, Niger, Kaduna, Adamawa and  Plateau states by the Boko Haram sect, Mallam Sanusi should be sanctioned for the  diversion of public funds through this illegal donation. He is a Boko Haram sympathiser.”  

Similarly, the pan-Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has expressed anger at what they call “Sanusi’s mockery of the dead”.

The National Publicity Secretary of Ohanaeze, Mr Ralph Ndigwe, said Mr Sanusi owed the nation an explanation. He found it mystifying that the CBN never extended similar gestures to hundreds of Igbo documented as constituting the majority of victims of violent attacks by Boko Haram in various cities of the north.

Mr Ndigwe threatened that should Mr Sanusi fail to come up with a good answer; Ohanaeze would lead a campaign for his removal as Central Bank governor.

He said a governor of the apex bank ought to be a person who lived above parochial inclinations.

Last year, Mr Sanusi widened the schism between the north and south when he introduced the controversial Islamic banking. Despite protests from Christian groups and the academia, he went ahead to give this year millions of dollars to two Islamic banks established in the north.

Last January, a few weeks after the Christmas Day bombing, Mr Sanusi granted a provocative interview to the Financial Times of London.

The governor, who is a degree holder in Islamic Studies, was quoted as blaming the emergence of the Boko Haram terrorist sect on the 13 per cent derivation allocated from the federation account to the oil producing states of the Niger Delta.

He stopped short of saying that oil revenue constituted about 90 per cent of Nigeria’s budget and that the Niger Delta was facing grave environmental degradation with rivers and farmlands polluted.

According to Mr Femi Falana, a human rights lawyer, the Financial Times “ill advised interview coincided with the increasing wave of the murderous attacks of the Islamist organisation on innocent people in many parts of the country.

Following the growing outrage over the Kano donation, CBN has issued a statement saying that Mr Sanusi had planned to donate $1.7 million (N25m) to the Madalla church bombed on Christmas Day, but had not been lucky in getting an appointment with the priest.