[size=15pt]CAN faults CBN’s $5m investment in Islamic biz group[/size]

On November 23, 2011 · In News , Tweet

By Sam Eyoboka



CONTROVERSY that attended the issue of non-profit (Islamic) banking in Nigeria was yet to settle down when it appeared that Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, was on another collision course with the Christian commu-nity in the country as he was said to have invested the nation’s $5 million in an Islamic organisation known as International Islamic Liquidity Management Corporation.

The investment, according to reports, automatically makes Nigeria, a secular nation, to be a full member of the Islamic body.

According to the reports, there are 191 members of the body comprising 54 regulatory and supervisory authorities, seven interna-tional inter-governmental organisations and 130 market players, professio-nal firms and industry associations operating in 43 jurisdictions of which the CBN is one such regulatory bodies that has full membership status.

Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, National President of Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, the umbrella body of Christians, who had spearheaded a campaign against the manner the CBN governor has been using the nation’s collective resources to champion the cause of Islamic banking in the country, responded in a telephone interview.

He told Vanguard: “If what you are telling me is true, then it confirms what we have been saying all along which people have refused to acknowledge and accuse us of heating up the polity. When we react to certain subterranean attempts by some individuals to Islamise the nation, we are accused of heating up the polity.

“They don’t acknowledge that we are only reacting to the actions of certain individuals who appear to be untouchables.”

According to the CAN president, the decision by the CBN governor to drag Nigeria into the Islamic group is reminiscent of the way the General Ibrahim Babangida’s military administration dragged the country into the Organisation of Islamic Countries, OIC.

Oritsejafor charged President Goodluck Jonathan to call Malam Sanusi to order, adding that the unilateral actions of the Kano prince are unbecoming of a CBN governor of a secular nation.

Oritsejafor maintained that the CBN governor was working on an agenda while everybody appears to look the other way.

He, therefore, asked all well meaning Nigerians to prevail on President Jonathan to call him to order.

He argued that since Nigeria is a secular state it was wrong for Sanusi to invest the nation’s collective wealth to register the Central Bank in an Islamic organisation, adding: “We have always said that Nigeria is a secular country.

“This habit of taking us into Islamic organisations will continue to create problem in the minds of the people.”

and that his penchant for playing the religious card with the country’s finances certainly can no longer acceptable.

He wondered how long the nation’s authority would look on while the CBN governor was steadily and methodologically dragging the nation by the noose in to different Islamic organisations across the globe.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/11/can-faults-cbns-5m-investment-in-islamic-biz-group/