By Kingsley Ighomwenghian, Finance Editor

There are indications of relative unease within the kitchen cabinet of the Lamido Sanusi -led Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) over his closeness to Atedo Peterside, former Chief Executive and now Chairman of Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc.

Such closeness, of which the CBN Governor himself accused his predecessor, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, according to a top banking industry source, is not in line with the regulatory distance he promised to maintain when he assumed the position.

Sanusi, who recently clocked 100 days in office, during which time he sacked the chief executives of five banks for recklessness and putting their institutions at risk among others, has also been accused of hobnobbing with Peterside.

The disquiet, it is believed, arises from the fact that Peterside and Sanusi have continued to frolic at a time when the former's bank is among the three now going through the special bank audit ritual. A statement by Mohammed Abdullahi, a Deputy Director and spokesman of the CBN on Sunday noted that the audit team has "made significant progress on the remaining three banks and these are Citibank, Stanbic IBTC and Standard Chartered."

With this in mind, the source noted that it is already as though, the audit of Stanbic IBTC, a member of South Africa's Standard Bank Group, is a mere formality, even as Peterside, one of the known critics of Soludo's consolidation agenda, has continued to sing the praise of Sanusi to high heavens.

For instance, Peterside is believed to have hosted Sanusi to a private dinner soon after his appointment. This is aside chairing one of the sessions during the visit of the CBN Governor to London on a road show reportedly to explain recent happenings in the Nigerian banking industry to international investors and correspondent banks, many of whom have opened lines of credit with the nation's institutions.

In his introduction of Sanusi at the London road show, for example, Peterside reportedly castigated and played the judge over his former colleagues, particularly the sacked five, just as he took a swipe at Soludo for playing the ostrich and praised Sanusi as the God -sent messiah.

Hear him: "Whatever be the case, it was clear that they had misread the severity of the economic downturn and the collapse of asset and commodity prices (including the Nigerian stock market index and crude oil prices) and had lent large sums of money to people (including some insiders), who did not have a semblance of a business plan. Their loan losses were so significant that they became clearly illiquid and became increasingly reliant on government 'life -support' via continued reliance on CBN's expanded discount window. Weak risk management and lopsided corporate governance practices did not help either.

"The Emperor had no clothes on, but CBN under Charles Soludo insisted that he was fully clothed and, indeed, threatened sanctions against any Bank CEO whose staff dared to make reference to this 'open secret' that the capital of a handful of Nigerian banks was almost completely eroded. They called this 'de -marketing' of the competition and even turned the clock back on greater financial disclosure and transparency.

"Perhaps Soludo was seeking a second term for himself before seeking clothes for the naked Emperors?

"Enter Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, a seasoned and knowledgeable economist and professional banker/risk manager with impeccable credentials, including, notably, integrity and a penchant for telling the truth at all times hence his bias towards full disclosure and transparency.

"I make this declaration publicly and without any hesitation because Lamido is a man I have known for over 35 years. We are both economists and professional bankers and our paths have crossed repeatedly over the years. Lamido is intelligent, bold, courageous, independent, straightforward, honest and humble."

The CBN London road show is, however, not the first of such failure to keep 'regulatory distance' by Sanusi, as the Stanbic IBTC Bank Chairman also hosted him, shortly after his appointment was approved by the Senate on June 4.

blablablabla  reform

blablablabla sanitzation

the truth go come out soon!!!

these folks need more sanitization themselves than the banking industry.

What is actualy wrong with the people of northern Nigeria, where is this people leading us to, why is it that any thing that enters into their hands fails, why have these barbaric conquerors made Nigeria a failed nation, Nigeria  practicaly became  the most ridiculuous nation on earth since 1967 it entered into their hands,

I once said on this forum during the appointment of Lamido Sanusi that we are about to have an incompetent CBN governor, some folks here disagreed with me,

After Sanusi's appointment as CBN governor , he immidiately cried foul in the public, telling every one that some Nigerian banks are unhealthy as a result of non performing loans, this lead to the sacking of five banks MDs, this action has kept many Nigerians confused ,with many questioning the competence and much louded performance of the immidiate past CBN governor Prof Chukwuma Soludo, and some others argueing that sanusi's action is simply a northern hostile takeover agenda.

In a bid to revitilise these five unhealthy Banks, Sanusi took over 400 billion Naira and injected into these banks as a bail out excecise, this action and the process was hailed by some common Nigerians while the elite class frowned upon it, the most annoying thing about the action of Lamido Sanusi is that these Five Banks in just less than two weeks after recieving these huge some, has lost about 40% of it's share value, an amount close to 470billion naira, consequently, it means that the bailout money injected into these five banks by Sanusi has vanished in the air,

This lost of 40% value was technicaly caused by sanusi himself, as it was as a result of lost of consumer confidence by custotmers and investors who lost confidence in the banks beacuse they were told by Sanusi that they are unhealthy, if sanusi understood his left from his right, he should have known that crying foul in the public will cause loss of consumers and investors confidence and will destroy the banks than helping it, having cried out, he shouldn't have gone ahead to inject such huge some into the banks , because as it has proven,will be a dead end venture, but it did not stop there, instead of sanusi looking for a more technical way to correct his mistakes, he is presently in a bid of reprinting a new naira note,( an action many have predicted is only made to bring back arabic text on naira notes,) this reprinting excercise will cost us billions, in a time our student are at home as a result of ASUU strike,

As many have wondered, is sanusi acting in good faith ? the truth is that, no matter what he/she does, a public servant is primarily judged by the result of his action, if in about six months of taking office , Nigeria is loosing billions of naira because of sanusi stupid and selfish actions, he is not acting in good faith if he was acting in good faith and in the intrest of Nigerians, he should have kept the matter indoors and go ahead and bail the banks, by so doing, the loss of consumers and investors confidence wouldn't have occured, which is even worse than non performing loans, because even if the banks recover today, they will find it extreemly hard if not imposible to regain consumer and investors confidence.

Then what is sanusi realy up to ?, Sanusi is only trying not to STEP INTO A GREAT MANS SHOE ( as theorised by the Jewish American power theorist and war strategist, Robert Greene, the author of the ground breaking, The 48 Laws of Power)Sanusi is only trying not to get lost in the much louded achievement of Prof soludo, he is trying to forge a new trend of his own making, his own public profile,but Nigerians may ask, is it just in a bid for sanusi to satisfy his ego and amoral mind that nigerians will have to waste Billions of naira, well the answer is that ,That is what you get when you appoint aboki as your CBN governor.