Banking sector reform not Northern agenda – Presidency
From LUCKY NWANKWERE, Abuja
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
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The Presidency has said the new reform being undertaken in the banking sector by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) should not be misconstrued as Northern agenda, urging Nigerians to discountenance any such insinuation.

Presidential spokesman, Olusegun Adeniyi told newsmen in Abuja on Monday that the authorities were not unaware of such an erroneous impression, pointing out that neither the president nor the government was perturbed about it.

He said President Umaru Yar’Adua was convinced that the present reform was the right course of action aimed at averting what could have become a national catastrophe in the financial sector and not targeted at weakening the existing stronghold of the Southern part of the country on the economy as being insinuated in some quarters.
Like Prof. Chukwuma Soludo’s consolidation was clearly misunderstood by people, he said the Presidency was not unaware of a possible shock and hiccups, which the present initiated by the CBN under Mr. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi might trigger in some quarters.

“I am aware there will be a few initial shocks and hiccups with Sanusi’s reform like it happened during Soludo’s consolidation exercise and that those affected will fight back and we are talking of very powerful vested interests here.  But the president is convinced it is the right course of action by the CBN to avert what could turn out to be a national catastrophe in the financial sector and that is why Sanusi has his unwavering support,” he stated.

He argued that the CBN would not have pumped over N420 billion to bail out the five banks whose management teams were sacked from collapse if the action was targeted at undoing the Southern part of the country through the promotion of a northern agenda.
“When people don’t want to address the real issues in Nigeria, they resort to cheap talk about some northern or southern agenda. Are you saying that these bankers were distributing their money with southerners?

“I recall that when Prof. Chukwuma Soludo came up with banking consolidation in 2004, there was also an outcry by some bankers who were losing out with the campaign that Soludo was pursuing Igbo agenda. But looking back today, assuming Soludo had not consolidated the banks then, we would not even be talking of any banking sector today,” he contended.

The presidential spokesman posed the following questions: Why would CBN pump in about N420 billion to bail out the five banks owned by people we have identified not as Nigerians but southerners? Why would Sanusi appoint southerners to replace the ones he removed? Why would he use our collective wealth as a nation to stabilize the savings of people who, if we buy the current argument, are southerners?
Describing the decision as one taken in the national interest, he advised Nigerians to “focus on the real issues,” pointing out that nobody had been able to disprove the fact that the five banks affected were in serious mess with potential threat to the country’s economy.

He said the Federal Government was comfortable with the Sanusi-led reforms, urging Nigerians to cooperate with him and the new management teams already put in place in the five banks.
Saying Sanusi’s intervention is already yielding positive results, Adeniyi said the mere fact that most of the big debtors in the country’s banks who had hitherto refused to honour their obligations had started paying back their debts should be seen as a good development.
The presidential spokesman also hinted that President Yar’Adua was expected back in Abuja on Monday after being away in the past one week to Saudi Arabia for scheduled medical check-up and the performance of the lesser hajj.

if anybody needed any proof that Sanusi is pursuing a Yar'adua agenda, then this is proof

I don't trust Yar'adua

I don't know whose interests he seeks to protect, but I surely know its not the generality of Nigerians.
With the March 25 reports by Vanguard playing out step-by-step

Its fair to assume that Sanusi is just a public face of special-interest-banking-reform

Time will tell who those special ineterests are.