MALLAM Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria so likes the sound of his voice that keeping quiet is never an option. He must be heard, no matter the subject, no matter the forum and he seems to have formed the habit of delivering addresses at various occasions.

His points are simple and most times repeated and obvious. He tells us about strains in the economy, something he guesses we do not know. He had months back hinted that the Naira would maintain a slide against major foreign currencies. He went as far as giving figures of his envisaged value of the Naira.

Utterances of a central bank governor are taken serious. He is seen as the one taking pivotal decisions on the economy. He also knows enough that any hints he drops can send the economy into a spin. Central bank governors are mostly seen, but rarely heard. They speak when they have something important to say. Thereafter, they return to their quietude.

Sanusi has distinguished himself by the frequency of his utterances mostly made on the spur. Sometimes he joins issues without bothering about his critical position as a core leader of the economy. At other times, he had threatened bank officials who were under investigation, telling journalists in Washington last year that he would jail all such bank officials. He asked to be quoted and said he did not care if the matters were in court.

From advocating an increase on electricity tariffs to bemoaning the collapsing standards of education, Sanusi stands out as the CBN governor that does everything but his job. When does he find the time for the circumspections that running the economy demand?

His argument about the high percentage of public resources used in paying salaries is a belated half of a campaign he commenced earlier in the year when he said emolument of legislators was a drain on the economy. Again, he was not saying something new, and as usual, he failed to produce seminal ideas to tackle an issue that has become part of the burden of our democracy. His partial views failed to say what the executive earned or how the CBN had dealt with its own legendary overheads on recurrent expenses.

“Do we need 36 states? Do we need the number of ministries that we have? Is an economy where states spend 96 per cent of their revenue paying civil servants an economy that is likely to grow in the long run? We have created states and local governments and ministries as structures that are economically unviable and the result is that we do not have funding for infrastructure,” Sanusi, a senior member of the national economic management team said at a book presentation.

“I don’t know how many people know that 70 per cent of the revenue of the Federal Government is spent paying salaries and overhead; leaving 30 per cent for 150 million Nigerians. It is not the place of the Central Bank governor to comment on educational policy. But one wonders the wisdom behind creating new universities when the ones we have built are still suffering from under funding.”

Is it then in our place to ponder what Sanusi does at the various fora, to which he belongs, where these decisions are made? Are we to guess that Sanusi has better ideas of doing his job, which are for public consumption rather than implementation?