“EVEN in madness there are rules,” said Senator Ayogu Eze, Chairman, Senate Committee on Information and Media at a press briefing on November 29. According to Ayogu Eze, the agreed norm in madness is that the person must misbehave. Eze’s briefing of last Monday was aimed at expressing the Senate’s anger with the comments credited to the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, over alleged jumbo pay being received by the National Assembly.In the estimation of the Senator, the CBN governor breached the rules by taking on the Senate and the National Assembly, especially when the legislature was not in contest with him.

Sanusi had, two weeks ago, at a convocation lecture at the Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State, incited public sentiment against the National Assembly when he declared that their overheads amounted to 25 percent of the Nation’s total overhead budget.

Senator Eze told newsmen that Sanusi could be invited to clarify his statement at the convocation lecture. He said that the National Assembly did not consume 25 percent of the national recurrent expenditure as alleged, adding that figures contained in the 2010 national budget would vindicate the lawmakers.

On November 30, the Senators moved a motion mandating its Committees on Appropriation and Finance to jointly interrogate Sanusi and get back with what he actually said.On Wednesday, December 1, the Senate Committee on Appropriation headed by Senator Iyiola Omisore and its finance counterpart headed by Senator Ahmed Makarfi invited Sanusi to the Hearing Room 2 for questioning. After more than three hours of interrogation, it became clear that both sides were sticking to their guns.

The senators insisted that they were not spending 25 per cent of the nation’s recurrent expenditure, while Sanusi also admitted that he made the statement credited to him in the media. He did not refute the story but asked the senators to look at it in context.

The sitting of December 1 was a heated one, featuring the Minister of Finance, Olusegun Aganga. Aganga said he did not make any contrary statement against the senators and was at a loss as to why he was summoned. But Sanusi insisted that going by the figures made available to him by the Budget Office of the Federation, the nation’s recurrent budget stood at N500 billion and that with the National Assembly consuming N136.2 billion as recurrent expenditure, the lawmakers were gulping 25.1 percent of the nation’s recurrent budget.

When asked whether he agreed with Sanusi, Aganda declined and stated that total recurrent expenditure of the nation must include Service Wide votes which stood at N660 billion. If Sanusi had added the Service wide votes with the other recurrent figures, the nation’s total recurrent package would stand at N1.3 trillion. And then the National Assembly budget would only amount to 3.77 percent of the nation’s total. Aganga also denied a report in the media which quoted him as getting set to cut the national budget and that of the National Assembly.

While Sanusi admitted that that could be the reality, he refused to apologise to the lawmakers, something that prompted Senator Omisore to remark that with Sanusi’s kind of conduct, the CBN had a long way to go.

Sanusi said “The context is what should be a major concern. I am not responsible for the overhead cost, neither am I responsible for the newspapers headlines, but I can confirm that I said that 25 per cent of the Federal Government overhead goes to the National Assembly.

“I enjoy serving the people, I am not thinking of quitting but if I m told to quit, I can assure you that I would not put up a fight. It is part of the independence of the CBN to  be able to express itself on the economy.”

Senator Omisore said that the public needed to know that wrong figures had been dished out and that the CBN Governor deliberately refused to add all funds amounting to the nation’s recurrent expenditure before announcing the figures which portrayed the lawmakers in bad light.

“If the CBN is being run with this kind of mentality, it means we have a long way to go,” Omisore said.

We may not have been told if there are motives behind Sanusi’s statements, but it is clear that facts and figures cannot support his claim. The total budget estimate of the federation must be taken into account when making declarative statements. By refusing to add N660 billion funds captured in the Service Wide Votes as part of the national recurrent expenditure, the CBN Governor  was clearly sending wrong signals.