THE Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) yesterday disclosed that it would today donate to the Christmas day blast victims at Madalla, Suleja, Niger State.
This is contained in a statement by the CBN Head of Corporate Communications, Mr. Mohammed Abdullahi, in Abuja yesterday. He said the action was in line with the CBN’s corporate social responsibility.
This is coming as the debate over the impropriety of the recent donation of N100 million to the last January 22nd multiple bomb blast victims in Kano continues to rage.
The Board of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) rose in stout defence of their Governor, Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, saying the donation was within the framework of the CBN mandate.
But a professor of finance and accounting and Visiting Professor to the National University Commission (NUC), Prof. Wilson Herbert has described the CBN governor’s action as crass abuse of office.
Speaking at the weekend with reporters on behalf of the CBN Board, one of its members, an economist and banker, Malam Dahiru Mohammed, expressed disappointment at the seeming politicisation of an issue that even concerns death of hundreds of Nigerians from across the country.
He declared that the Board of the CBN had approved the donation to the Kano bomb victims and those of the last Christmas Madalla bombings.
But Herbert insisted that selfish interest and ethnic sentiments were the driver of the N100 million donation to the Kano victims because the incident was not the first in the series of bomb attacks since the Boko Haram insurgency began in the country over a year ago.
He described the action of Lamido as a gross abuse of office because as governor of the CBN he had no such powers to be doling out tax-payers’ money at his whims and caprices. He recalled that the CBN governor also not too long ago donated half a billion naira to the University of Benin as a price for an honorary doctorate from the institution.
SOURCE: Guardian Newspaper, 21 February 2012. http://ngrguardiannews.com
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