Gold Discovered In Haiti Estimated at $20 Billion

May 12, 2012 | Posted by ABS Staff
Tagged With: Caribbean, Gold, Haiti

Haiti – Its capital is blighted with earthquake rubble. Its countryside is shorn of trees, chopped down for fuel. And yet, Haiti’s land may hold the key to relieving centuries of poverty, disaster and disease: There is gold hidden in its hills — and silver and copper, too.

A flurry of exploratory drilling in the past year has found precious metals worth potentially $20 billion deep below the tropical ridges in the country’s northeastern mountains. Now, a mining company is drilling around the clock to determine how to get those metals out.

In neighboring Dominican Republic, workers are poised to start mining the other side of this seam later this year in one of the world’s largest gold deposits: 23 million ounces worth about $40 billion.

Haiti’s annual budget is $1 billion, more than half provided by foreign assistance. The largest single source of foreign investment, $2 billion, came from Haitians working abroad last year. A windfall of locally produced wealth could pay for roads, schools, clean water and sewage systems for the nation’s 10 million people, most of whom live on as little as $1.25 a day.

“If the mining companies are honest and if Haiti has a good government, then here is a way for this country to move forward,” said Bureau of Mines Director Dieuseul Anglade.

In a parking lot outside Anglade’s marble-floored office, more than 100 families have been living in tents since the earthquake. “The gold in the mountains belongs to the people of Haiti,” he said, gesturing out his window. “And they need it.”

Haiti’s geological vulnerability is also its promise. Massive tectonic plates squeeze the island with horrifying consequences, but deep cracks between them form convenient veins for gold, silver and copper pushed up from the hot innards of the planet. Prospectors from California to Chile know earthquake faults often have, quite literally, a golden lining.

Until now, few Haitians have known about this buried treasure. Mining camps are unmarked, and the work is being done miles up dirt roads near remote villages, on the opposite side of the country from the capital. But U.S. and Canadian investors have spent more than $30 million in recent years on everything from exploratory drilling to camps for workers, new roads, offices and laboratory studies of samples. Actual mining could be under way in five years.

“When I first heard whispers of this I said, `Gold mines? There could be gold mines in Haiti?’” said Michel Lamarre, a Haitian engineer whose firm, SOMINE, is leading the exploration. “I truly believe this is our answer to taking care of ourselves instead of constantly living on donations.”

On a rugged, steep Haitian ridge far above the Atlantic, brilliant boulders coated with blue-green oxidized copper jut from the hills, while colorful pebbles litter the soil, strong indicators that precious metals lie below.

“Just look down,” said geologist John Watkins. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

Nearby, 8-year-old Whiskey Pierre and his barefoot buddies stared at a team of sweat-drenched men driving a narrow, shrieking diamond bit 900 feet into the ground.

“That is a drill!” shouted Whiskey, bouncing on his toes. “The man drill to get gold!”

The workers periodically pulled up samples and knocked them into boxes. The first 40 feet yielded loose rocks and gravel. About 160 feet down, cylinders of rock came back peppered with gold. At 1,000 feet down, rocks were heavily streaked with copper.

Geologists extrapolating from depth and strike reports estimate at least 1 million ounces of gold at two sites. In April, prospectors found the first significant silver ever reported in Haiti: between 20 million and 30 million ounces. And in the end, it may be copper that is the most lucrative: geologists suspect that more than 1 million tons lay in just one of many areas under exploration.

The prices of precious metals have been volatile in recent years, with copper selling for about $8,000 per ton, silver at $30 an ounce, and gold at $1,600 per ounce.

“Ultimately, I think mining is going to dwarf anything else in Haiti,” says Michael Fulp, an Albuquerque, N.M.-based geologist who visited the drill sites. “Usually you’ve got about a one-in-1,000 chance of making a mine from the exploratory stage, but those odds are much better in Haiti because of the lack of any previous modern-day exploration and very, very promising samples.”

Gold was last gathered in Haiti in the 1500s, after Christopher Columbus ran the Santa Maria onto a Haitian reef. Spaniards enslaved the Arawak Indians to dig for gold, killing them off with harsh conditions and infectious diseases. When the Spaniards learned of even more lucrative deposits in Mexico, they moved on.

In the 1970s, United Nations geologists documented significant pockets of gold and copper, but foreigners weren’t willing to risk their cash in a country where corruption and instability has long discouraged outside investment.

Ironically, it was only after the catastrophic 2010 earthquake that investors saw real opportunity. Fifteen days after a seismic jolt brought down much of Port-au- Prince, a Canadian exploration firm acquired all of the shares of the only Haitian firm holding full permits for a promising chunk of land in the northeast.

“Investors want to get in at the bottom,” said Dan Hachey, president of Majescor Resources, the Canadian company, “and I figured after that earthquake, Haiti was as low as it could get.”

Hachey was also betting that the $10 billion in foreign assistance promised for earthquake recovery would force change and accountability.

“The eyes of the world will not allow the government to fool around,” he said.

Three firms are considering mining in Haiti, but so far only SOMINE has full concessions to take the metals out of the mountains. Those permits, for 50 square kilometers (31 square miles), were negotiated in 1996 under President Rene Preval and require the firm to hire Haitians whenever possible.

In exchange for minimal permit fees, SOMINE committed to spend $2.25 million in the first two years. In addition, it will pay $1.8 million after a feasibility study, according to the contract.

Bottom line: Haitians should get $1 out of every $2 of profits, compared with about $1 out of $3 that most countries get from mining firms.

Discoveries of rich resources, whether diamonds, oil or gold, often prompt great economic booms but come with great risk of environmental, health and social problems. Chile, one of the wealthiest nations in Latin America, is the world’s largest copper exporter, deriving a third of its income from the metal. Peru, with one of the fastest growing economies in the world, has privatized most of its mines in recent years, and now gets about 20 percent of its total revenues from the industry.

Though the contractual terms are generous for Haiti, there is plenty to be cautious about. Haiti’s government is repeatedly rated as one of the most corrupt in the world. The mines would ostensibly be regulated by government officials responsible for enforcing environmental, mining and corporate laws, but at this point those officials don’t exist and there are neither plans nor budgets to hire them.

Further, open pit mines, common around the world, are crater-like holes made up of a series of massive terraced steps that drop thousands of feet into the ground. When the resources are exhausted, usually after about 25 years, the pits can be refilled or converted into reservoirs. In many cases, the mines leave serious problems — environmental contamination, displaced communities and mountaintops torn asunder.

From Papua New Guinea to the Philippines to Brazil, mining accidents have allowed tons of waste to be spilled into rivers and lakes, creating environmental disasters.

“In low-income countries, the dangers are substantial,” said UCLA political science professor Michael Ross. “The great irony of mineral wealth is that those countries that most desperately need infusions of mineral revenue — low-income countries with weak governments — are also least likely to manage these resources wisely, for the benefit of the country.”

Read the rest of this story on Businessweek.com

Still Sanusi Lamido Sanusi

Imade Alonge Ize-Iyamu

BREAKING NEWS!!!!! Court rejects Sanusi’s bid to reverse suspension

Justice Gabriel Kolawole of the Federal High Court, Abuja, on Wednesday declined an ex-parte application filed by the suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Lamido Sanusi.

Sanusi had in the application, sought to reverse his suspension by President Goodluck Jonathan, pending the determination of an interlocutory motion he filed along with a suit he initiated, challenging the suspension.

He had accompanied the ex-parte application with documents, including a letter dated February 19, 2014, addressed to the plaintiff by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, titled:”Suspension from office.”

Shortly after the applicant’s lawyer, Sam Kagbo, informed the court about the application, Justice Kolawole said he felt hesitant and constrained to grant the reliefs sought. He ordered that the respondents be put on notice.

On plaintiff’s apprehension that a delay would occasion harm to his interest, the judge noted that the court possesses the powers to declare the suspension unlawful and order his return to office, if at the end of trial, it finds that the suspension was wrong.

He added that even where the tenure had lapsed, the court could order the defendants to pay the plaintiff such remunerations and allowances, if his remuneration and allowances were also suspended while his suspension lasted.

The judge held that it was unsafe, at the current preliminary stage of the case, for the court to embark on granting far-reaching interim orders which have all the attributes of a mandatory injunction without hearing from the defendants.

Justice Kolawole noted that, when defendants have been duly served with the originating summons and motion on notice, he intends to inquire whether, in the light of the Third Alteration Act, No: 20 of the Constitution, the Federal High Court has the jurisdiction to hear the case, irrespective of the questions for determination contained in the originating summons.

He consequently adjourned to March 12 for hearing.

In a suit filed on Monday, Sanusi wants the court to among others, restrain the President and two others from giving effect to his purported suspension pending the determination of his suit.

Also to be restrained are the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and the Inspector General of Police (IGP).

The EMOTAN

Brisbourne Iyamu

EMOTAN

Emotan a patriotic woman who traded in foodstuffs at the very spot where her statue stands in the 15th century. At that period,{11th} Oba Uwaifiokun {1430AD-1440AD} usurped the throne of the Benin kingdom in place of his senior brother,Prince Ogun who was the heir apparent. Ogun in those times of travail. paid secret and nocturnal visits to Benin from his exile. On many occasions,this market woman called Emotan warmed Ogun of impending dangers and advised him
iagainst interacting with some treacherous chiefs who may reveal his presence. On one occasion Emotan actually hide prince ogun from his adversary. Some Historians are of the view that Emotan was a market woman who took care of little children whilst their mothers were away buying and selling their wares in oba market they refer to her as the market woman who began the first "DAY-CARE CENTRE" in Benin City.
When Prince Ogun eventually regained the throne and was subsequently crowned as the real Oba of Benin, he took the name {12th} Oba Ewuare the great {1440AD-1473AD}. He did not forget the pivotal role played by this simple market woman, Emotan who saved him from glaring dangers during his exile years. When Emotan died, Oba Ewuare ordered that the sacred Uruhe tree be planted at the very spot where Emotan used to display her goods in Oba market and decreed that thereafter, every person in Benin who is performing any ceremony of whatever must pay homage to Emotan.Thus to this day every citizen,including the Oba himself pays homage to Emotan.

During the reign of {33rd} Oba Osemwende {1816AD-1848AD} the commemorative tree fell and he replanted another Uruhe tree on the same spot.

In 1951, the British colonial administration officials injected the tree with poisonous chemicals and uprooted it. This action almost led to a violent mass reaction. After which the {37th} Oba Akenzua II {1933AD-1978AD} vehemently protested the destruction of the Emotan shrine. This had been there since the 15th century. Consequently, the colonialists acceded to the request for a replacement. A life-size statue was cast by Mr. J.A.Danfor in London from a clay Marquette modeled by Enomayo, professional brass caster from the Igun-Eronmwon.
The new Emotan statue was unveiled amidst pomp and pageantry by the Oba Benin, Akenzua ll on March 20, 1954.

More on the Hundred Buck.

A Hundred Bucks Says You Won't Read This Story

Unless you're more of a player than we think you are, that new hundred-dollar bill coming this fall won't wind up in your pocket very often. But it may be America's most popular export, the most coveted bill in the world. And the story of the new hundred — still made by hand with ancient tools — is the story of American money itself. 

>>PLUS: A STUDY GUIDE FOR THE NEW $100 BILL 

>>ALSO: A VISUAL HISTORY OF THE BENJAMIN

By Chris Jones on August 14, 2013

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PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRISTOPHER GRIFFITH

The plate: A finished chrome-coated printing plate for the new hundred, thirty-two to a sheet, ready for inking.

Published in the September 2013 issue

Our new hundred-dollar bill, like every other single piece of American folding money, is born in this rotary boiler. It's a perfect sphere, an angry kettle fifteen feet across, spinning high off the ground between two stained concrete towers. Most people swear out loud when they see it for the first time. A network of gears, each tooth the size of a fist, churns away in the darkness behind it. The towers and the gears allow the boiler to spin like a planet, like Saturn, rust-colored with wide rings of black grease. It is hot in its shadow, the steam coming off it like breath, and every surface within twenty yards is either dripping or damp. The boiler feels almost monstrous, a relic of a spitting industrial age, corrosive and mean, and it feels that way especially when it finally stops spinning and its oval maw clangs open, vomiting tons of boiling cotton that hits the floor with a heavy slap. There it is, the earliest, no-bullshit incarnation of cash: piles of raw cellulose cooked to its fibrous essence, as brown as it is white, and scalding. American money is born in a flame.

The boiler is housed in an ancient redbrick mill, built in 1863, tumbling toward the shore of the Housatonic River in tiny Dalton, Massachusetts. The mill is named for a local hero, Captain Byron Weston, but is owned and operated by Crane & Co., makers of fine paper. Today the company is under the stewardship of fifty-three-year-old Doug Crane, the seventh generation of his family to manage the business. (The Crane ledgers, which begin with Colonel Thomas Crane in 1770, include the sale of "13 reams of money paper" to a Boston silversmith named Paul Revere.) Winthrop Crane, Doug's great-great-grandfather, won the first contract to supply the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing with paper in 1879, when the mill was only sixteen years old. Crane paper has been the money in American pockets since.

In the beginning, Crane & Co. made paper from discarded rags collected by stooped men pushing carts. American currency is still made with rags — until the last decade or so, mostly from the trims and off-cuts of denim manufacturers, including Levi's. Paper money wore soft, like a pair of blue jeans, because it was made from blue jeans. But recently, Americans decided they liked jeans that stretched, so jeans companies began adding spandex to their fabric. Money with spandex in it wouldn't be money anymore, which means much of Crane's time is now spent on a global search for waste cotton that wasn't used to make elastic pants.

Today, in a big, windowed room around the corner from the kettle, there are maybe fifty rectangular bales of cotton waiting to be boiled, each weighing about five hundred pounds. They'll be dumped into the boiler by a forklift. This particular cotton was never woven into cloth. It's the shorter, coarser fibers left over from the cotton's combing, still flecked with seeds and traces of earth from Georgia or Egypt — it's impossible to tell. The better cotton has gone to places like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh to be made into six-dollar T-shirts; the cotton that otherwise would be thrown to the wind has come here to be made into hundred-dollar bills.

American money also contains linen, which is made from flax. It's finer and lighter than cotton; a same-sized bale weighs only 360 pounds. There are fewer bales of it here, because the Crane family recipe calls for 75 percent cotton and 25 percent linen. The linen improves the paper's tensile strength, like rebar does in concrete. It also gives American money a very particular feel.

Most other currencies in the world are made either entirely from cotton or, increasingly, from polymers — plastic — first introduced in Australian banknotes in 1988. The three bodies that oversee the production of American currency — the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, and the Secret Service — explored using polymers for the new hundred-dollar bill, largely for security reasons. By total value, the U.S. hundred is the most heavily counterfeited single denomination in the world. It is also the closest thing to a global currency, with about 60 percent of them somewhere other than here, making the Benjamin both the most legal and threatened of tenders. But to the great relief of the Crane family and the sweating men who work in this mill, the U.S. government decided to stick with the cotton-linen blend that fingertips across the globe instinctively recognize.

In the late 1980s, a new counterfeit hundred, the most perfect counterfeit yet made, began appearing in circulation. It looked identical to the real thing, betrayed visually, at least, under only the most rigorous forensic testing. (Some minor flaws were visible after enormous copies of the bills were made, but these were probably purposeful. Its makers didn't want to be suckered by their own handiwork.) Although the counterfeit came to America mostly on boats from gangs in China, it was eventually traced to North Korea, where it was believed to have been manufactured by the North Korean government on its own presses. Since then, new generations of the same counterfeit have appeared, including a big-head version, mimicking the redesigned hundred that entered circulation in 1996. This family of bogus notes has been given its own title, one that befits its almost mythical stature: the North Korean supernote.

Some stories about the supernote sound more like legend than fact — like its being laundered by a bank in Macao called the Banco Delta Asia, or several thousand of them somehow appearing overnight in Lima, threatening to tip over the entire Peruvian economy. But there remains one truth in the supernote's history that has never been forgotten: It was first detected at the Central Bank of the Philippines by a teller, given pause only by the same nebulous flaw that betrays the majority of counterfeits. It just didn't feel right.

It just didn't feel right because it wasn't printed on paper made by Crane & Co. in Dalton, Massachusetts. It wasn't boiled in this kettle.

Read more: How Money Is Made - Making of the New Hundred Dollar Bill - Esquire 
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The New Hundy: A Study Guide

Because you could stand to learn a thing or two about the Benjamin

By The Editors on August 14, 2013

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>>READ CHRIS JONES'S PROFILE ON THE NEW HUNDRED DOLLAR BILL HERE

The hundred is the ultimate icon of American monetary strength. "It's the closest thing to a global currency," Chris Jones writes, "with about 60 percent of them somewhere other than here, making the Benjamin the most legal and threatened of tenders." It's getting a makeover, and we're here to look at what's different and why. Because this is your money, and it's changing right before your eyes.

THE WATERMARK:

A smaller, far less detailed portrait of Ben Franklin is visible when it is held up to light. The linen content in U.S. money makes its watermarks fuzzy; in contrast, the watermarks in all-cotton currency look razor-sharp.

THE VIGNETTE:

Independence Hall, part of the Franklin narrative, is featured on the reverse side of the current hundred as well as on the new bill. But the engraving on the new note — dating from 1929 — depicts the building's back rather than its front.

THE RIBBON:

The new plastic security ribbon looks as though it were threaded into the paper. (It's visible only on the note's face.) In fact, the sheet of paper is somehow made around the ribbon — through a secret process — with a trio of narrow paper bridges helping to keep it in place. Visible within the ribbon are three-dimensional images of two icons.

THE MICROPRINTING:

New microtext has been added to the traditional engraving of Franklin near his collar. The engraving itself, done by Thomas Hipschen in 1992, is the same as the one used on the current hundred; it's based on an original portrait painted by Joseph Siffred Duplessis around 1785. Bureau engravers are forbidden from signing their work in any way.

THE QUILL:

Along with the color-shifting ink well, the quill pen drawn by Brian Thompson unifies the composition and sharpens the emphasis on Franklin's story in the new design.

THE COLOR-SHIFTING INK:

The 100 in the lower right corner turns from copper to green — just as a bell in the adjacent inkwell appears and disappears — when the bill is tilted in the light. The ink contains microscopic metallic flakes that reflect different wavelengths of light.

Read more: New Hundred Dollar Bill Facts - New Hundred Information - Esquire 
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How money is made.

A Hundred Bucks Says You Won't Read This Story

Unless you're more of a player than we think you are, that new hundred-dollar bill coming this fall won't wind up in your pocket very often. But it may be America's most popular export, the most coveted bill in the world. And the story of the new hundred — still made by hand with ancient tools — is the story of American money itself. 

>>PLUS: A STUDY GUIDE FOR THE NEW $100 BILL 

>>ALSO: A VISUAL HISTORY OF THE BENJAMIN

By Chris Jones on August 14, 2013

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PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRISTOPHER GRIFFITH

Wrapped hundreds — $10,000 in a strap — on a sorting carousel.

Brian Thompson's office looks like any other standard-issue government cubicle, in a bunker of a room inside the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington, D.C. On the door to the room, there's a small poster of an M.C. Escher lithograph: two hands holding pens, each drawing the other's cuff. There's also a sign: OLD WORLD CRAFTSMANSHIP. BECAUSE WE CARE. Apart from the sign, there are only hints that something beautiful happens here. In Thompson's cubicle, a drawing table has been pushed against one of the half walls. Two metal trays of pencils are sitting on it, grays and colors, kept as sharp as knives. There's one long banner on the wall, a series of Escher drawings that blend seamlessly into one another, a flock of birds turning into a school of fish and back into birds again. And then there's a poster of Thompson's own latest work of art, framed in pride of place above his table: the new hundred-dollar bill.

The Artist: Brian Thompson designed the hundred, drawing many of its new images by hand at his desk.

Thompson is forty-three years old, African-American, with a closely trimmed mustache. He's dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt. He was nineteen when he began working at the bureau, a talented high school art student with no formal training in currency design. The bureau is a union shop; most craft employees here arrive as apprentices, working under journeymen until they become journeymen themselves. Thompson's father was a cylinder maker, fabricating the big rollers that draw the currency paper through the presses, and one day he saw there was an opening for an "art job." It turned out the banknote designers were looking for an apprentice. Thompson put in his portfolio, and they liked what they saw. They asked for seven years of Thompson's life, and in exchange they would teach him the trade. Twenty-four years later, he has his own note.

There's a pile of loose papers in the corner of his cubicle. He digs through it until he finds what he's looking for. "There it is," he says, and he brings a single glossy white sheet under the light on his table. It was one of his first assignments, dated July 12, 1989, hand-lettering the alphabet in what he calls banknote roman, the principal font on all American money. He had to learn, by hand and by feel, its spacing, its body weight, the proportions of every shadow and serif. "These are the fundamental principles," he says. By 1992, he had worked his way up to painting things like streetscapes and bald eagles, but only in shades of gray, from the bird's white head to the blackest tips of its feathers. This is how Thompson learned to draw vignettes — the illustrations of buildings on the backs of bills — with depth and tone even in the absence of color. But bald eagles were only momentary diversions from the hand-lettering he had to continue to do every day for years. "Letters get you to focus on the details," Thompson says. "That was the basis of my whole education: Every single detail says something. It means something."

He digs through the pile of papers again. He pulls out a simple pencil drawing of a feather, a quill digging into a curling scroll. As a physical object, the new hundred is born again and again in that boiler in Dalton, Massachusetts. As an idea, it was born on this table, with these pencils, on this single piece of paper, with this drawing of a quill.

Thompson likes money that tells a story — something that, despite the constraints of a note's size and technological necessities, could pass for narrative, for art. He's constantly looking at the cash of other countries for inspiration (current favorites include the Danish krone and the Botswana pula), but he cites two principal influences: Georgia O'Keeffe, whose paintings of landscapes and flowers taught him how to combine balance with flow, and Escher, whose intricate, mathematical drawings showed Thompson the importance of precision and the power of illusion. "He would have been an incredible banknote designer," Thompson says. "He would have freaked people out."

On the back of the new hundred-dollar bill is one of Thompson's favorite magic tricks. There is an oversized 100 bordered in white and blue, printed in orange. This new feature is primarily to help the visually impaired — like the large purple 5 on the five-dollar bill — but it's also a secondary defense against counterfeiters. While the 100 looks entirely orange, closer examination reveals that it contains alternating lines of orange and green. Through some quirk of the optic nerve, our eyes pick up mostly the orange. It dominates, and casual counterfeiters might overlook or be unable to replicate the disappearing green.

What Thompson hopes you'll see instead is the story he's trying to tell.

Read more: How Money Is Made - Making of the New Hundred Dollar Bill - Esquire 
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The rap sheet on Sanusi Lamindo Sanusi, the Emir of Central Bank of Nigeria.

Imade Alonge Ize-Iyamu

REFLECTION ON SANUSI- People in glass houses don't throw stones. What does Sanusi expect after whistle blowing? A pat on the back? Sadly, this is Nigeria's politics. Arumah Oteh of the stock exchange whistle blew on a member of NASS and National Assembly wanted to roast her. She was investigated and came out clean. SLS should not worry about the allegations bbelow as if he is clean, he will be vindicated like Arumah Oteh.

READ THE SPECIFIC ALLEGATIONS AND EVENT AGAINST SLS

"The Time And Dates Of Events.

On 02/05/2013:
President Jonathan send a Query to Sanusi over his fraudulent misappropriation of over N248b as contained in the 2012 CBN Account. Sanusi was told to respond on or before 18/05/2015.
Some of the contents of the query includes:
1] Donating N1b to BUK, Kano and he wrote that he donated N4b.
2] Writing off N40b debt of a bank without documentation and authority.
3] Invested $Billions in Malaysia Islamic Bank, with no return on Investment to Nigeria.
4] Awarded 63 contract valued over N1b each, without approval or going through Govt requisition Process.
5] Spend N1.257b for Lunch for his Police and Private Guards in a year.
6] N1billion donation to a political party to build offices Nationwide.
7] N4.5b to renovates his personal home without approval.
8] N4b on a CBN PH branch building that was already completed.
9] N2b Bogus payments to Airlines (some not registered in Nigeria, while another do not operate local fights) to distribute currency.
10) Claimed paying Nigerian Security Printing & Minting in 2011 N38.233b for the “printing of bank notes”. Company's turnover in 2011 is only group is N29.370b from all customers including CBN.
11) Associated Airline was paid N1.025b in 2011, while the company was Dormant in the same year. (No Operation)
And 33 other related shocking Frauds and gross embezzlement cases from Mallam Sanusi.

On 22/05/2013:
Sanusi responded to the President's query and on studying the response, the President send his Query, the Audit by Ernest and Young and Sanusi's response to The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) Report.

On 27 June, 2013.
The FRC brought their finding to the President, and the President informed the National assembly.
The House of Representative took over the issue and it was block by Kano legislatures, while the Presidency was still Pressing the Disgraced CBN Governor for more explanation.
Sanusi was informed that a legal process will commence if he is not coming out with reasonable response to these monument frauds.

On 27/09/2013
When the heat was too much for Sanusi, he planned to divert the attention of Nigerian who might not be aware of indictment by CBN Audit and FRC's reports, by whistle blowing to the President about unremitted $49.8billion from NNPC.
He later apologized that he got his figures and calculation wrong and said that it is $12.8b, later $10.8b and lastly $20b.

On 20/02/2014
After waiting for Nearly 7 months after the release of the Financial Reporting Council indicting Sanusi of recklessness, frauds, and abuse of Office, the disgraced CBN was unable to provide any meaningful explanation for over N248b he wasted.

President Goodluck Jonathan was left with no option than to suspend Mallam Sanusi Lamido to save the Nigerian economy from the embattled Sanusi, who just awarded a contract of N5billion to his would-be Brother In-law, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai to design Muti Billion Naira civic center for CBN.".

President Goodluck Jonathan has suspended the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria.

Henry Omoregie shared Transformation Watch's photo.

Beautiful Piece...

EXCERPTS:

What I will say however to those who are propagating the propaganda that the President suspended Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi to stop him from speaking is this: it was Sanusi’s job that was suspended, not his mouth and anyone who knows him knows full well that he will not let anything come between him and a microphone.

Opposition politicians and fifth columnists have continued to pay the price for underestimating President Goodluck Jonathan’s leadership abilities. They confuse analysis for paralysis.

In the first month of the year 2014 for instance, there have been several positive events that benefit everybody in Nigeria. Nigeria’s economy overtook South Africa’s as Africa’s largest economy. Not a squeak from the opposition. Internationally renowned firm, Renaissance Capital, revealed that Nigeria is the number one destination for Foreign Direct Investment in Africa. Still not a squeak from the opposition. The United Nations officially certified Nigeria free from Guinea Worm in January. Radio silence from the opposition.

But within the same month of January, the opposition have clung on to every rumour, innuendo, gossip and careless talk that has the capacity of painting the president in bad light. And where there is no negative rumour to spread, not to be undone, they make one up!

A most embarrassing example of this ‘opposition magic’ was the news circulated by the opposition to the effect that former military president, Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, had upbraided the President for permitting the arrest of an APC operative who said that should the party lose elections in 2015 due to rigging (knowing the opposition, any election they lose is an election that has been rigged) “the only alternative left to get power is to take it by force; this is the reality on ground”.

Eventually, it turned out that ex president Babangida had said no such thing. The statement was a fabrication which was traced to the Facebook page of the same APC official who said the taking of power by force is the only reality on the ground.

It should now be obvious to all Nigerians that these persons are setting the stage for a plan B should their plan A fail to materialize. The thing about a plan A though is that you have to have one for you to even have a fighting chance of the plan being realized, thus, an opposition that focuses on insulting the President instead of formulating a winning plan and sharing it with Nigerians obviously has no plans and therefore plans to fail.

And it is this lack of planning and coordination that fixates the attention of the opposition on attacking the President instead of his policies. Why do they do this? Those who are discerning know that the only way you can effectively attack policies is if you have alternative policies. But where you don’t have alternative policies, you are left with no option but to go ad hominem.

The same people who were online attacking the President for allegedly budgeting a billion Naira for feeding at the Presidential Villa (and they deliberately suppressed the fact that hundreds of police and military officials feed at the Presidency) are today justifying the 1.257 Billion Naira that the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, under Sanusi Lamido Sanusi claimed it spent on Private Guards and lunch for police men.

The individuals who took to Social Media to attack the Presidency’s proposed travel budget of 2.4 billion Naira in the 2014 Appropriation Bill are today justifying the 9.24 billion Naira spent by the CBN on training and travel expenses for the year 2012.

Thank God the Presidency did not spend even up to 1 billion on legal services. If it did, the hired social media hounds would have used this for propaganda. The question should be why are they silent on the 20 billion Naira the CBN under Sanusi claimed it spent on ‘Legal and Professional Fees’?

It is because these voices are procured. There is nothing wrong in offering your services to politicians, but do not hide this fact and pass off yourself as an objective and independent activist.

Alas, many in the opposition have successfully blinded the eyes of the public to their duplicity.

I cite an elementary example of the nature of the opposition. At the beginning of the year, I devoted the first few days of 2014 to tweeting about the achievements of the Jonathan administration and projecting the positive things that were already happening in Nigeria. When I tweeted, I had expected opposition sponsored elements (and there are many on Twitter whom I have christened Politwitters) to contradict these achievements. Not unsurprisingly, they chose to insult. When I provided evidence that Nigeria’s Per Capita Income in 2009 (the year before President Jonathan ascended to power) was $1091 and that this amount had improved by 70% to $1721 in 2013, what I got thrown back at me was “na that one we go chop?” or “how does that affect the price of Garri?”

They scoffed at the Jonathan administration’s new National Automobile Policy, saying it was laughable to imagine that Nigeria would be a car manufacturing nation within a year. Well, Nissan has announced that their first made in Nigeria Nissan SUV would be rolled out in April. They criticized the President for declaring a State of Emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states, yet their own governors found that the emergency had significantly eroded the terrorist’s ability to launch terror attacks ensuring that there was enough peace for them to visit Borno state.

And so, greeted with one success after the other of the President’s policies, the opposition has realized that they cannot compete with him on the level of ideas. And what do they do?

They have carefully taken into consideration the President’s personality and have come to an awareness that he is a man that would not go negative or attack personalities and their conclusion is that that is the only front on which they can overwhelm him.

But they have not reckoned with the connection the President has with ordinary Nigerians. This is a President that does not keep secrets from Nigerians. A President that is secure enough in himself and his position to allow them to dialogue without any boundaries.

In fact, from studying President Jonathan’s style of leadership, I have come to the conclusion that the Jonathanian key to growing one’s influence is to speak to the public in a way that makes the public want to listen to you and listen to the masses in a way that makes the masses want to speak to you. That is why Nigerians are excited about the impending National Conference. They know that their President is listening. After all, he listened to them in 2010 when they asked him not to ban the Super Eagles from international soccer tournaments. He listened to them when they overwhelmingly asked him to run in 2011. He listened to them when they said they did not want Nigeria to succumb to the practice of gay marriages.
The President even said it himself on his first Presidential Media Chat that he has a great capacity to listen to people, even if they are talking rubbish, without betraying emotion, thus communicating with his listeners that he is giving the fullness of their being his focused attention in order to understand them which does not mean that he agrees with them.

And you know what that does? It ignites the type of folksy connection that the President now enjoys with Nigerians because they know that their President seeks first to understand them before he asks them to understand him. With President Jonathan, there is no monologue or dialogue of the deaf. With him, Nigerians can always count on a dialogue of interested parties.

Nigerians know that their President will never threaten anybody, be they human being, dog or baboon. Citizens of this great nation know that the man of peace they elected to pilot their ship of state will never tell the down trodden to ‘go and die’! In fact, they know that even if they are in a war torn nation thousands of miles away, their gentleman President will send planes to get them out of harm’s way. They know that their President will never celebrate his birthday with 1 billion Naira. Instead, they are certain that when they are hungry, their President will ensure that the down trodden of society get billions of Naira worth of grains and food staples so that they can hunger no more. This is why the 2013 Global Hunger Index of the International Food Policy Research Institute applauded Nigeria for her significant reduction of hunger levels.

Nigerians further know that they have a philosopher king who reads regularly and who has encouraged Nigerians, through his personal initiative (The Bring Back the Book Project, launched on December 20, 2010) to read. Readers are leaders and the President doesn’t just read, he also donates books to schools through the bring back the book project since he believes readers become leaders because the mind is a muscle and reading is the only gymnasium in which you can build up your mind muscle.
It is precisely this mind muscle that many of those who attack the President with ad hominem words lack. Instead of having highly defined mind muscles, they have built up their ego muscle. Alas, the worst possible combination you could ever find in men is to have a weak will and a strong ego. Unfortunately, this is the case with those who throw stones because they are attuned to destroying rather than building.

On Sanusi – The Opposition And Fifth Columnists - Reno Omokri