9 Months after, SSS Returns Sanusi’s Passports

9 November 2014

Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II

By Ibrahim Shuaibu in Kano

Barely a week after the meeting between President Goodluck Jonathan and Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, the Department of State Security (DSS) has returned the international passports it seized from the former in February this year.

The return of the passports is coming nine months after the DSS seized them, following his suspension as governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) by Jonathan. The State Director, State Security Services, (SSS), Bassey Etang, handed over the two travelling passports to the emir at his palace Saturday.

The release of the passports may not be unconnected with the recent visit of the emir and his senior counsellors to President Jonathan at  the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

Emir Sanusi's diplomatic travelling passport was seized at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos when he returned from Niger Republic while the ordinary international passport  was collected from him at the Malam Aminu Kano International Airport when he was about boarding Turkish Airline to France.

Confirming the handover of the passports, the Senior Special Assistant to Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso on Chieftaincy and Emirate Council Affairs, Alhaji Tijjani Mailafiya, disclosed that the emir got back his travelling documents yesterday morning.

Mailafiya lauded the gesture of the federal government in returning Sanusi's passports, saying it will allow him to travel when necessary as he continues to work for his people at home and abroad.

Sanusi had a running battle with President Jonathan following the allegation of missing $49.8 billion oil money. His insistence on the alleged missing  oil money, which pitted him against the President earned him a suspension, which eventually led to his ouster as CBN governor.

The genesis of the battle was the leakage of the September 2013 letter he wrote to President Jonathan, in which he raised  issues about the management of the country’s crude oil revenue.

In the letter, where Sanusi alleged that the NNPC failed to remit more than two-thirds of the oil money earned by the country between January 2012 and July 2013, the former governor insisted that out of the sum of $67 billion, only about $18 billion had so far been accounted for, while the sum of $49.8 billion was unaccounted for.

He however reviewed the alleged missing fund downward to $12 billion and later $10.8 billion upon reconciliation with the ministry of finance. He thereafter brought it up to $20 billion.

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