The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Nuhu Ribadu

  • Fighter of corruption in Nigeria considers next steps

    Fighter of corruption in Nigeria considers next steps

    The cash was handed over in large sacks containing $15 million in $100 bills, bags so heavy that the stoop-shouldered civil servant needed help carrying them.

    James Ibori, the governor of an oil-rich state in southern Nigeria, was so desperate to escape prosecution on corruption charges that he tried to pay off the civil servant, Nuhu Ribadu, Nigeria’s anticorruption commissioner. Mr. Ribadu accepted the money, but it was all a ruse.

    A bespectacled former police officer with the no-nonsense style of a G-man, Mr. Ribadu did not keep the money, a remarkable act in a nation where corruption is endemic. Instead he deposited it in a government bank vault, evidence of Mr. Ibori’s many misdeeds, and in 2007 Mr. Ibori was arrested. Ultimately the charges did not stick — the governor was acquitted by a Nigerian court. He was eventually convicted of money laundering and conspiracy to defraud in Britain, where he had stashed a hefty chunk of the hundreds of millions of dollars of oil money he was believed to have embezzled.

    The outcome of the case is in many ways an emblem of Mr. Ribadu’s career as a corruption fighter in Nigeria, a country Colin L. Powell once called a nation of “marvelous scammers”: a string of partial victories against a seemingly unbeatable foe.

    These days, Mr. Ribadu sits at home in a government-issue villa in this prefab 1980s-era capital, ruminating on his next move.

    At 53, he has been celebrated inside Nigeria and beyond for his five-year tenure as chief of the anticorruption unit, beginning in 2003.

    In that time he built the unit, called the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, into Nigeria’s largest anticorruption agency, with over 1,200 employees in six offices across Nigeria. He successfully prosecuted in 2005 Tafa Balogun, an inspector general of police who had resigned. Mr. Balogun pleaded guilty to failing to declare his assets. Mr. Ribadu arrested Mr. Ibori, the former governor of Delta State, in December 2007. He prosecuted 10 prominent national public figures, including nine governors.

    His reputation gained luster only after he was forced from office in 2008 and into exile after what he said were assassination attempts, after he tried to prosecute corrupt politicians. He was appointed a visiting fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington and was also a senior fellow at St. Athony’s College, Oxford.

    He returned to Nigeria to run for president in 2011, but came nowhere near victory, and since then has struggled to find a place in Nigerian public life. He continues to investigate graft, but with a less prominent platform. His report pointing out large-scale corruption and waste in the country’s oil industry, which was published last year, was ignored by the government that commissioned it.

    “One of my very big disappointments,” Mr. Ribadu said intently in an interview here.

    Still, he remains a unique figure, prominent in the political opposition and often named as a possible future candidate for office.

    “For the generality of the people, he is a dogged anticorruption crusader,” said Femi Falana, a prominent Nigerian human rights lawyer. “For the corrupt elements that constitute the political class, they fear him.”

    Since Mr. Ribadu’s abrupt ouster as head of the anticorruption agency, “there is a feeling that the war on corruption is a lost battle,” Mr. Falana said.

    The anticorruption fight appears to be on sabbatical in the garden of Mr. Ribadu’s home here.

    “Most people you will have encountered will want to ‘settle’ you,” the soft-spoken Mr. Ribadu said in an interview in the garden, using a Nigerian term for a bribe. “Up to my last day at work, people were trying to bribe me. That is the shocking thing.” Mr. Ribadu began his career as a street police officer in some of Lagos’s rougher neighborhoods, eventually rising to become the chief prosecutor for the Nigerian police. He speaks with a piercing intensity, sometimes clenching a fist to punctuate a point. He grew up deep in Nigeria’s northern hinterland in the town of Yola. It was a devout Muslim household and a “refuge against pain and injustice” that succored persecuted lepers, he wrote in his autobiography.

    •This story was first published in The New York Times on November 22

  • Presidential anarchy

    Presidential anarchy

    Can the president of the Federal Republic levy war against a state and get away with it? From the conduct of President Goodluck Jonathan’s henchmen and women in the Rivers contrived crisis, that appears the case.

    It is nothing short of criminalising the presidency. But how much of this impunity can the civil order bear before something terrible gives?

    The especial tragedy of the Jonathan Presidency is, with reckless regularity, it repeats history as farce.

    But neither the first Nigerian president to boast a PhD, nor his hyper-educated aides, seems fazed by this roller-coaster cascade into infamy. Such is their total gobble of the sweet poison of naked power – powers they don’t even have, had they not chosen to criminalise the presidency, if they ever bothered to read between the lines of the 1999 Constitution, warts and all!

    Take the latest trigger in the contrived crisis: the Rivers House of Assembly mayhem of July 9. Now, between the Goodluck Jonathan and Rotimi Amaechi battling camps, there is enough villainy to gift a multitude, with some left-over.

    How can an immaculate, fiery and all-conquering mace-battler, with the moral ardour of some bathetic Christ clearing his father’s house of worship of a den of thieves, morph into a sanctimonious victim, nestling in a hospital bed; and peeping at millions of sympathisers, from the vantage point of the lead photo, on the front page of a national newspaper?

    But before you condemn that battler, meet his victim: an apparent constitutional criminal, one of the G-5 renegades who, backed by some subversive federal power, felt they could impeach the Rivers Assembly Speaker and, like some tragic-comic pantomime with voice-over, were already on the subversive ritual, seconding motions, suspending imaginary legislators, voting, getting “elected” and giving “acceptance speeches”!

    Must Nigerians be assaulted by such power lunacy?

    To apologists or self-proclaimed purists, who insist “constitutional criminal” is jumping the legal gun, since no one has been tried and found guilty, this riposte: if the courts had serially voided such legislative banditry in Oyo, Plateau and Anambra states, during the Obasanjo-era presidential anarchy, can it be less culpable now because Jonathan-era legislative lunatics are repeating the farce?

    And here really lies the crux: if Obasanjo could grandstand that Nuhu Ribadu was undermining the Constitution to get rid of allegedly thieving politicians, what noble cause can the current rascals attach to their own subversive activism?

    Those who nail Governor Amaechi for “invading” the Rivers legislature to clear the mess miss the point. Yes, a governor should be a gentleman. But with a president that tweaks rules for illicit gains, that could be fatal.

    If you doubt, ask Rashidi Ladoja, the bitter-sweet former governor of Oyo State. He shunned President Obasanjo’s diktat that he surrender his gubernatorial authority to Lamidi Adedibu, Obasanjo’s beloved Ibadan garrison commander, only to holler in the cold for no less than 10 months, victim of an illegal impeachment.

    To those who still want to play the ostrich, pushing “law” without factoring in the lawless temper of its operators, the odyssey of Justice Isa Ayo Salami, under this same Jonathan Presidency, is instructive. Salami did his duty by law. But to the lawless in government, that was near-capital crime, for which the no-nonsense president of the Court of Appeal is paying.

    Yes, the Judiciary saved Ladoja; and voided the allied legislative rascality in Plateau and Anambra states. But with the Salami experience, it is doubtful if that judiciary had not melted into Heraclitus’s state of flux, no thanks to a hostile Jonathan Presidency.

    Amaechi certainly was not pretty, “storming” the legislature to nip in the bud the putative coup against his office. But he did the needful to preserve his position in an emerging presidential anarchy. For all you know, if the coup against him had succeeded, he would now be shrieking, Ladoja-like, from the wilderness, while his traducers would be mouthing “due process”! No society thrives under such cynical manipulation.

    But it is instructive how this Jonathan-era rascality empties into the Obasanjo-era mother river, even if Jonathan’s bumbling, to use Malthus-speak of basic economics, is “geometrical” while Obasanjo’s “original sins” now appear “arithmetical”.

    Talking about “original sin”, the dramatis personae of the current crisis appear to have cleanly forgotten the first outrage of 10 July 2003 (the Rivers outrage followed almost 10 years after, 9 July 2013!), when some Abuja-backed criminals tried to unseat controversial Governor Chris Ngige. It was the classic malevolent godfather’s challenge, before the plague of illicit impeachments based on “simple minorities”, which the latest Rivers jokers essayed with devastating consequences.

    What happened to the ring leaders back then: AIG Raphael Ige, the apparent Abuja viceroy in the crime, Tafa Balogun, then sitting IG, and even Obasanjo himself, the sitting president who, throughout the crisis, pushed the theory of plausible deniability?

    AIG Ige, the apparent fall guy, suffered abrupt retirement (even if his retirement time was close) and later, sudden death. Mr. Balogun suffered eventual humiliation, though his role, beyond being the Police IG was unclear; and his comeuppance was not directly linked to the Ngige saga. Even Obasanjo has continued to suffer progressive devaluation, to the point of irrelevance, since his presidential glory days.

    Do all these speak to Mbu Joseph Mbu, the commissioner of Police deep in the Rivers crisis, given his inappropriate conduct and reckless utterances? There are always spiritual consequences for political rascality that hurt the silent and innocent majority.

    Festus Eriye, editor of The Nation on Sunday, in his penetrating piece of July 14, described President Jonathan as Pontius Pilate, in a piece he headlined “Pontius Pilate strikes again”. That was a brilliant metaphor because before Jonathan, there was Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Nigeria’s first and only Prime Minister, and Pontius Pilate I of Nigeria’s troubled political horizon.

    Sir Abubakar launched political insurrection at the Western Region, with his suspect proclamation of state of emergency, after a contrived crisis in the Western House of Assembly, just to cripple Obafemi Awolowo.

    Jonathan, Pontius Pilate II, is doing the same, in what would have been the old Eastern Region, although this time, against a party mate; but with no less partisan bile, despite his aides’ comical denial. Jonathan court historians should check their history books and tell their principal how the Balewa gambit ended.

    Which brings us to the Jonathan denial ensemble: two “doctors”, Reuben Abati, Doyin Okupe and a Gulak, who obviously thinks everybody’s thinking faculty is, as his own, locked in Jonathan’s gulag!

    Ahmed Gulak, sounding every inch a power brat, told Prof. Wole Soyinka to be “responsible” (a counsel his principal ironically needs more than anyone!), because of Soyinka’s stance on the contrived Rivers crisis.

    Well, Gulak should check his history books. When Balewa was being led astray or even Obasanjo, Jonathan’s political creator, was leading himself astray, Soyinka was there, an ever consistent voice of reason, which nevertheless is the proverbial harsh hunter’s whistle, to the hearing of a doomed dog.

    Those who engage in double-speak, let them. But true friends of Goodluck Jonathan must tell him to withdraw from his Rivers misadventure.

    It is a wide and merry way that leads to infamy.

     

  • Truths, lies and my EFCC days

    I read Mahmud Jega’s Daily Trust column a fortnight ago, with the title “Gra-gra versus softly-softly”.  It was composed in his characteristic meticulousness which also touched a nerve that concerns all.  It also involved me, personally. It involved me because the piece was not only about anti-corruption struggle, something I came to be more identified with in the course of my career, but also because I was mentioned, or referenced to, many times in the piece. In the piece, Jega repeated several erroneous notions about my work at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). But to be fair to him, those insinuations were far from being his concoctions. They have been held for a long time by a section of Nigerians who were largely misinformed about the modus operandi of the EFCC I headed or about me as a person. I therefore thought it a duty to correct some of the wrong impressions people have about what we did, for the sake of future and the reading public.

    I must, however, appreciate many of the positive things about our operations and modest achievements at the EFCC highlighted by Jega. Those were things we achieved largely because of our resolve to form a strong and professional agency, from the outset. Strong institutions are at the base of whatever things to come out of a system. This was a major focus for us. There were deliberate steps at capacity building that would prove extremely advantageous for the work we did in the five years I was there. I use “we” because the work was never a one man job. EFCC was beyond Nuhu Ribadu, or any individual for that matter. It was a team work. The patriotism, esprit de corp and professionalism exhibited by the team were the secrets for our successes.

    But as I always insist, success of anti-graft efforts is hinged largely at the leadership level, especially the political leadership. We were lucky to have the cooperation of the leadership at the time. To the credit of President Olusegun Obasanjo, he let us do the work even at a time we were going against some elements that were extremely close to him. It is therefore amusing when I hear people these days charge me of “selective justice”. Well, perhaps those charges could be passed as the example of what Wole Soyinka called “our collective amnesia”. Take a comprehensive list of high profile people EFCC brought to justice, majority of them were people that could be correctly tagged “Obasanjo boys”. Even though some of them suddenly turn around the moment they found themselves in trouble with the law, as a way of buying public sympathy. Unfortunately, many people don’t strive to stretch the facts to reveal this truth. One largely neglected pillar of our work was the Judiciary and the criminal justice system generally. We had the support of other people in the justice administration chain. Without the will of incorruptible judges and other law enforcement officials, all our modest effort would have come to nought.

    However, the main thesis of Jega’s essay, which was also made clear from the title, was that the EFCC I headed was something of a gra-gra agency – a body that is peopled with exuberant officers eager to arrest suspects in order to hit the headlines. This is a flawed assessment of it. It is also something that people come to believe, largely on account of the agency’s portrayal in the media. EFCC was, and is, never about arrests. In fact, arrest was just a fraction of the entire work. But because arrest is what makes the news, the myriad of steps and processes we follow before and after arrest are mostly overlooked.

    Every step in administration of a corruption case is carefully outlined and has its rigours and identified procedures. A lot of work would have to be put in from the point of accepting a petition or starting a case, analysing it, identifying the key issues and persons, investigation, sourcing documents, obtaining arrest and search warrants, preparing charges and then arrest. We tried to work on each of the steps in a very meticulous manner. It is a little surprise therefore, that throughout my period there was only one person who took me to court challenging his detention by the EFCC. He also lost the suit. The reason was simple: we followed the law and therefore had to do our homework before we pick anybody. Similarly, to point to the meticulous nature of what we did, it is in record that the EFCC recorded a world record of over 90 percent convictions on all the cases we prosecuted. I don’t think gra-gra would yield these results.

    It is also incorrect to say that EFCC didn’t pursue preventive measures as regards corruption. We fully appreciated the fact that the twin strategy of prevention and sanctioning must always go together in law enforcement in general and fighting corruption in particular. The preventive measures of the EFCC were often overshadowed by the news selling headlines about arrests but EFCC took a lot of preventive measures. Major ones include the establishment of the Training and Research Institute that has been carrying out studies on corruption prevention in both public and private sectors. The institute is in the lead in training of detectives, public servants, bankers and so many others in Nigeria today. The establishment of Financial Intelligence Unit is one of the most important steps in preventive measures of controlling corruption globally; EFCC has done it for Nigeria. EFCC also worked to establish international networks and linkages, notably with the United Nations, FBI, Metropolitan Police, German BKA, and West African anti-money-laundering group, GIABA, among others.

    We also worked closely with many departments of governments, civil society groups, religious organisations and schools, on public enlightenment to stem corruption in the society. EFCC also engaged the National Assembly to amend laws, the judiciary on corruption prevention and justice delivery, the customs, the FIRS, NPA and many states and local governments. In fact, many of the arrests made by EFCC arose out of whistle-blowing efforts through these mechanisms. By the way, arrests and prosecutions are also very powerful tools of preventive measures, because they do send a strong message that one cannot get away with corrupt practice, no matter how highly placed.

    The article also mentioned the impeachment of three governors allegedly influenced by the EFCC. I try as much as possible not to be personal by commenting on such cases but the fact that it is suddenly gaining currency, makes it only sensible to clear the misconceptions. The EFCC did not and could not have impeached any governor or force legislators to do so. It will be unfair to deny the legislators the credit of doing their constitutional responsibilities. The EFCC did its part of the responsibility of investigation and submission of findings to the various state assemblies all over the nation. Some state assemblies had cause to act on such reports, others did not. But we certainly did not force anyone to take any action. My understanding of events then was that two out of the three former governors got arrested in London with millions of Pounds. They absconded from justice there and that triggered chain of events that culminated in their loss of political control of their states and thereby resulted in their impeachments. The former governor of Ekiti State had his own local issues. He lost out with the elite of the state, his political party, and other stakeholders. His ordeals had nothing to do with the EFCC. In all the cases, it was obvious that the governors lost out with their political parties and therefore the assembly members were more than willing to act on the thorough investigation reports of the EFCC. The reports were the extent of EFCC’s involvement in those impeachments.

    As a proviso, I want to state that all the actions we took while at the EFCC were taken with the purest of intentions and based on available facts before us at the time. But it is understandable that in everything we do as humans, we are bound to be misunderstood. However, fear of being misunderstood should not be an excuse for not moving to salvage our country. As citizens, we all have the civic responsibility of playing our part in healing the country of its myriad of maladies and guiding it to the coast of prosperity.

    • Ribadu is the former EFCC chairman

  • Ribadu is an hypocrite- Presidency

    The Presidency on Monday described the comment credited to former Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nuhu Ribadu that Nigeria is ‘sinking ship’ as false, hypocritical and self-serving claim.

    Ribadu, at a lecture in Kaduna on Saturday, was said to have declared that Nigeria is a “sinking ship” under President Goodluck Jonathan with the yearnings of the masses being neglected by a tyrannical leadership.

    A statement by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati noted that there is no tyranny greater than the tenure of Ribadu at EFCC when governors were removed via undemocratic means and illegally barring some persons from contesting elections.

    Ribadu, the statement said, ought to be grateful to the President for saving him from self-imposed exile, restoring his rank in the Nigeria Police and converted his dismissal from service to retirement.

    The statement reads: “The Presidency totally rejects the false, hypocritical and self-serving claim by Mallam Nuhu Ribadu at a lecture in Kaduna on Saturday that Nigeria under President Goodluck Jonathan is a “sinking ship” in which the yearnings of the masses are being neglected by a tyrannical leadership.”

    “We find it very sad and utterly deplorable that Nuhu Ribadu has resorted to shameless wolf-crying, the peddling of arrant falsehood and the denigration of the elected government of his fatherland in furtherance of his selfish quest for continued national political relevance after his wholesale rejection by Nigerian voters in 2011.

    “It is very unfortunate indeed that the once highly respected former EFCC Chairman has now taken to political prostitution and developed a penchant for irresponsible and reckless utterances aimed at improving the electoral fortunes of his new friends and “leader”, who he once famously denounced as a crook who is “not fit to hold public office.

    “There can be no doubt that nothing else but blind ambition for an office for which he is clearly unfit is driving Ribadu to infer that an Administration led by a President who welcomed him back to the country after his self-imposed exile, restored his rank in the Nigeria Police to save him from the shame of demotion and converted his dismissal from service to retirement has now become tyrannical and anti-people. We take special note of his ingratitude.

    “If Nuhu Ribadu wants to talk of tyranny then he should talk of the days when he orchestrated the impeachment of governors with an illegitimate quorum of legislators who had been threatened by the EFCC under his watch. It beats the imagination that Nuhu Ribadu, a man who once presided over an  EFCC which in 2007 compiled a list of disqualified politicians aspiring for office without a court order or legal backing now has the guts to accuse the man under whom Nigeria has had the most credible elections in this Fourth Republic of being  the leader of a “sinking ship.

    “Can there be a greater tyranny than the tyranny of removing governors via undemocratic means and barring legally entitled persons from contesting elections?” The Presidency queried

    “Nothing else but misguided ambition could have driven Ribadu to urge Nigerian youth to rise up and save the country from an Administration which he willingly served recently, but which he now duplicitously and insincerely claims is “imposing private interests on the majority”.

    “It is certainly the height of hypocrisy for Ribadu who built his entire reputation as an anti-corruption crusader by completely disregarding the rule of law and recklessly trampling on the rights of perceived enemies of the government of the day, to now accuse an administration that has consistently upheld the rule of law and respect for fundamental human rights of being tyrannical.

    “It is only a shameless man that will turn around and accept to be the political lackey of a man he once openly accused of corruption at various times between 2004 and 2007. Now that he has been used and abused by the undemocratic overlords that reign over the ACN and fearing that he may soon be dumped now that that vehicle is about to be subsumed into the so called All Progressives Congress, Ribadu is  desperately seeking fresh relevance.

    “Ribadu’s descent into a moral abyss since leaving the exalted office of EFCC Chairman, his equally ethically-challenged new friends and his willingness to vituperate against any person or institution he perceives as a challenge to the fulfillment of his unattainable ambitions, have clearly exposed him for what he truly is – a thoroughly unprincipled attention-seeker whose entire career in the public service was built on bootlicking and doing the bidding of the powers of the day without a care for legality which should have been his primary concern as an officer of the law.

    “President Jonathan and his Administration will not be distracted from the diligent implementation of the agenda for national transformation by the falsehoods and vituperations of Ribadu and his new friends.

    “Far from being tyrannical as Ribadu falsely alleged in Kaduna, President Jonathan will, as he has consistently done since assuming office, continue to strengthen institutions of democratic governance in Nigeria, uphold the fundamental human rights of all Nigerians including the youth, and protect their right to elect leaders in free, fair and credible elections.” Abati  stated

  • Sultan, CAN sue for peace

    Sultan, CAN sue for peace

    …Ribadu urges politicians to stop ‘fueling crisis’

    The Sultan of Sokoto, Saad Abubakar, on Thursday appealed to Nigerians to embrace peace no matter their religions and tribes.

    He noted that it was in God’s wisdom that He instituted different tribes and religions therefore mankind and specifically Nigerians must tolerate one another for peaceful co-existence.

    He said the crisis and disaffections in the world today is not the making of God, adding that “it is product of man inhumanity to man.”

    While preaching the message of peace in Abuja, through his representative, the Andoma of Doma at the National Consultative Meeting on “the role of religious leaders and traditional rulers in building a culture of peace, national unity and integration”, he cautioned the citizenry not to hurt their compatriots.

    He said since the consequences of religious crisis has not yielded more than destruction, Nigerians should return to the basis that God created mankind equal but man created the colour bar that now bedevils the society.

    According to him, the only quality that exalts a man is his goodness and not religion or tribe.

    He said, “what makes you different before God or what makes you acceptable to God, what endears you to God, is the much of your goodness that has benefited the other person, whether he is of your religion, your colour, your tribe or not.”

    The cleric and traditional ruler appealed to all religious leaders in the country to aggressively preach the sermon of peace and harmony to their congregations.

    The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), President, Ayo Oritseyjafor, agreed with the Sultan’s message of peace, adding that “that any group that desires peace is definitely doing the right thing.”

    For Nigeria to attain a desirable rebirth, the CAN president said the citizenry must do all that is possible to re-establish peace in the country.

    His words: “But let me quickly say that if we must build a new Nigeria, if we must build a great Nigeria, then we must all of us do everything it takes to bring peace.”

    Meanwhile, the former chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Malam Nuhu Ribadu, also appealed to both political and religious leaders to stop fueling crisis in Nigeria.

    “I want to appeal to our own leaders, especially politicians, you have a role to play. Please don’t be putting more fire on this already tense situation,” he said.

    He described the unrest as a global phenomenon, a challenge, which he urged the leaders to tackle head on.

     

  • Ribadu in Ikenne, urges Boko Haram sect to accept Amnesty

    Former Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) presidential candidate, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu has  appealed to members of Boko Haram sect to yield grounds in the name Allah, and accept the amnesty offer being planned by  the Federal Government.

    The former Anti – corruption Czar  also urged the Federal Government not be discouraged by the stance of the militant Boko Haram sect on Amnesty but to persevere in its peace moves towards making the group to lay down their arms.

    Ribadu,  who spoke in Ikenne home of late Chief Obafemi Awolowo on Saturday while fielding questions from reporters, noted that the Boko Haram insurgence in parts of the North in the last couple of years had cost the country fortunes in diverse areas.

    The former EFCC boss  was accompanied Ikenne by the former Aviation Minsiter, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode and  former Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Alh. Aliyu Moddibo, to the matriarch of Awolowo family, Chief (Mrs) Hannah Idowu Dideolu(HID) to commiserate with her on the death of her son, Evangelist Oluwole Awolowo.

    He said  dialogue with members of the sect would bring much sought hope putting an end to the spate of killings and destruction from the sect.

    Ribadu said: “it is very sad when I heard that the Boko Haram sect rejected the amnesty offer, but that does not mean that government should totally relent in the move. Personally, my view from the onset is we should pursue the direction of dialogue and not closing any door against peace.

    “From now, the feelers and body language of the sect is not encouraging, but that does not mean that we should abandon or give up. We should pursue the direction of peace.

    “I urged the Federal Government to continue in the line and direction of looking for a way of addressing and stopping this carnage and bloodbath. Even if means pursuing dialogue, even if there are stumbling blocks on the way, it is not to give up.”

    According to him, the Islamist sect were not doing the nation any good by shedding blood of innocent people at will in a country where  the act of terrorism is not acceptable and tolerable.

    He urged the sect to take cognisance of the fact that  no meaningful could be achieved in an atmosphere of violence and blood-letting.

    ” I am also making a direct appeal to those who are involved to know that they are destroying their own people. They must understand that it has not worked anywhere in the world and it will not work in Nigeria. What do they want to gain from this senseless killing. In the name of God let them stop,” Ribadu stated.

    Ribadu in condoling with Mama HID all left behind by the late Oluwole, he described the deceased’s death as a painful loss and urged the family to accept it as an act of God.

  • Ibori’s $15m bribe sum: EFCC arrests businessman, begins fresh probe

    Ibori’s $15m bribe sum: EFCC arrests businessman, begins fresh probe

    •More suspects to be nabbed

    The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) yesterday arrested a businessman, Mr. Chibuike Achigbu, in connection with a $15 million bribe allegedly offered a former chairman of the commission, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, by ex-Governor James Ibori.
    Following the conviction of Ibori by a UK Court, the Delta State Government had gone to a Federal High Court to apply for the return of the bribe sum which is being kept with the Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN).
    But Achigbu initially filed an application on August 29 before a Federal High Court claiming that  the money belongs to him.
    He said he gave the money to a former presidential aide, Dr. Andy Uba, to finance the  Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) during the 2007 elections.
    Barely 72 hours after filing an application for the return of $15 million bribe sum to him, he made a U-turn by withdrawing the matter.
    The withdrawal made the EFCC to launch a full-scale investigation into how the bribe sum came about and the sponsors of the botched suit.
    According to a reliable source in the commission, the embattled businessman was arrested in Lagos on Thursday and flown to Abuja for interrogation.
    The source said: “The suspect, who was interrogated for many hours, has made a useful statement to our investigators, which could lead to how the $15 millon bribe was offered.
    “It is obvious that some forces were using Achigbu as a shield  over the bribe sum. We hope to effect more arrests on the curious suit.
    “If you look at the affidavit sworn to by the businessman, it contained many revelations which require in-depth  probe.”
    As at press time, it was gathered that although  the businessman had been granted bail, he was yet to meet the terms.
    The Head of Media and Publicity of the EFCC, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, confirmed the arrest and grilling of Achigbu.
    “We have started investigation on issues that we feel he should clarify,” he said.
    Following the withdrawal of the case, the Congress for Progressive Change had insisted on a fresh probe of the $15 million donation.
    In a statement by the National Publicity Secretary of the party. Eng. Rotimi Fashakin, the CPC asked the EFCC to probe alleged donation of the $15 million to the PDP.
    “The Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) is appalled by the controversy generated by the alleged $15 million bribe money (currently in the custody of the Central Bank of Nigeria) offered to the former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu in 2007 by the former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governor of Delta State, Chief James Ibori.
    “With the formal conviction and subsequent incarceration of Chief James Ibori (for money laundering offences) by a British Court, the need for  proper disposal of the money became a front-burner issue.
    “Understandably, the Delta State Government showed up as the rightful owner since the money was purloined from it by Chief James Ibori, in his capacity as the then substantive governor.
    “Whilst the matter was pending in court, a Nigerian business man, Mr. Chibuike Achigbu, stepped forward as the authentic owner. In a deposition, filed by a team of ten lawyers (including three Senior Advocates of Nigeria), Achigbu averred, inter-alia, that he raised the money for the purpose of donating to the electioneering campaigns of the PDP in the 2007 general elections.
    “Furthermore, the money was allegedly given to Dr. Andy Uba, the then Senior Special Assistant on domestic Affairs in a PDP Presidency and now a PDP Senator, for the purpose of authenticating (with the EFCC) its suitability for donation.
     “Uba was alleged to have passed the money to  Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde, the then Director of Operations of EFCC and now the substantive Executive Chairman.
    “As a party, we view the portent of this latest twist to the bribe money saga as foreboding for the fight against institutionalised corruption in the Nigerian polity.
    “Section 7(1)b of the EFCC Act 2004 states: ‘The Commission has power to cause investigation to be conducted into the properties of any person if it appears to the Commission that the person’s lifestyle and extent of the properties are not justified by the source of income.’
    “ This twist to the saga  has thrown up some questions:
    •    Does the EFCC Act empower the Commission to authenticate the suitability of a donation to a political party?
    •    Does the EFCC not have sufficient powers to investigate Mr. Chibuike Achigbu with a view to ascertaining the source of his income vis-à-vis justification for making such huge donation?
    •  Should the EFCC not investigate Senator Andy Uba as the locus in the latest controversy of the alleged bribe money?
    •  With the EFCC Chairman Ibrahim Lamorde’s name mentioned in the deposition, should he not tell the Nigerian people all he knows about this case?
    •  Has this deposition by an acolyte of a serving PDP Senator not exposed the ruling party as mostly responsible for the festering corruption in the Nigerian state?
    “The unexplained illegal jerking up of the expenditure for the 2011 fuel subsidy from N240 billion to N2.67 trillion is part of the continuing story of PDP’s unsuitability for the electoral trust of the Nigerian people.
    “As a Party, we owe it a sacred duty to the Nigerian people to expose the infra-dig in the polity for the purpose of ensuring its sustainable growth.”