Mariam Mariam
On May 29, 2006, Nuhu Ribadu, then chairman of the EFCC, was a special guest of a live programme to commemorate “Democracy Day” on the network of the African Independent Television (AIT). Nuhu Ribadu was at the height of his powers then, and he responded to all the questions with an excessive selt-assuredness of an anti-corruption czar who had the backing of his boss; and Nuhu played the part and one got the impression that he was thoroughly enjoying not just the power he wielded, he lapped up the public visibility and seemed to really enjoy listening to the sound of his own voice!
What shocked me most from that interview was his response to a question about Obasanjo’s own corrupt tendencies, which seemed to have become obvious to everybody in Nigeria by that time. Swiveling from side-to-side on his seat, Ribadu dismissed any suggestion that Obasanjo could have been corrupt; he gave an answer that, I am sure by now, he must be regretting if he remembers the episode at all. :The man (tha is Obasanjo) is a saint, I tell you”! those were Nuhu Ribadu’s exact words!
Up to that point, I had never met Ribadu in my life. He visited Media Trust and addressed our Editorial Board twice and even when I was still Chairman of that Board, on each occasion, I was out of the country, so did not get the opportunity to study the EFCC Chairman from close quarters and therefore could not gauge those elements of the persona that one did only from very close contact.
As Nuhu Ribadu’s work in the anti-corruption body deepened, many disturbing issues began to emerge around him; these include the persistent bending of the law just to ensure that he entrapped people who without doubt might be corrupt but who have not been so pronounced by the courts of law. When the illegalities of the EFCC under Ribadu are pointed out, those who defend it say that the need to fight corruption outweighed the niceties of the law. What stood at the heart of the EFCC regime of Nuhu Ribadu was the disturbing pattern of blindness to crimes which the Obasanjo gang seemed to be systematically perpetrating against the Nigerian people.
Ribadu saw no evil nor heard any evil for as long as the people concerned were related to General Obasanjo’s criminal regime. It got so annoyingly partisan that the Nigerian media, which had declared Ribadu their man of the year, and whose support for his work was unanimous, began to point out the inconsistency in his approach to issues of corruption in our society. An exasperated Ribadu would counter that the press had been bought by the people he was trying to bring to book!
But I think his greatest mistake was to enter the field of politics and become, as somebody described him, the Rottweiler of ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo. We have not received any report to the contrary, but it is safe to therefore conclude that Nuhu Ribadu willingly allowed himself to be used to fight Obasanjo’s wars: the EFCC list became an infamous weapon of inquisition in the hands of a vengeful Obasanjo and has become one of the most illegal and anti-democratic instruments ever used in Nigeria’s politics. It is part of the baggage which Ribadu carries that he will forever be remembered for willingly becoming a weapon of blackmail and persecution in the hands of the most unconscionable, most criminal and most unpatriotic regime in Nigeria’s history – the Obasanjo regime.
Eventually, I was to meet with Nuhu Ribadu and had the opportunity to discuss a lot of the issues with him. I came to some basic conclusions about the man. I think that he genuinely believed that there was the need to fight the deep-seated corruption at the heart of the Nigerian state, therefore, he approached the job with a tremendous amount of zeal and determination, especially because he saw that there was a national consensus against the scourge; on the other hand, he felf flattered that he had the backing of President Obasanjo who had a different set of calculations for bringing about the EFCC and especially appointing Nuhu Ribadu to head the body. Nuhu Ribadu unfortunately got lost in the trapping of power, and because he was far too emotional than rational, tended to behave like an unguided missile in the performace of his task. It was this negative element of his approach which would become his undoing!
But it I have sounded critical in my appreciation of Nuhu Ribadu, it is not to take away from the tremendous contributions which the young man has made to the empowerment of the Nigerian people. That he did by demystifying the criminal elements who tool the nation hostage economically and politically. For the bandit politicians in government houses across the country, the fear of Nuhu Ribadu became the beginning of wisdom.
There was suddenly no more space for the impunity which reigned before Ribadu came into the public space. They continued to steal but had to spend far more time thinking about how to conceal the proceeds of their crime. The fact that many of their colleagues have been exposed as not better than petty thieves became a sources of worry for members of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum. The spectacle of governors who ran their states like fiefdoms now getting their days in court became most welcome for the Nigerian people.
Nuhu Ribadu also became the nemesis of the tribe of 419 kingpins who soiled the name of our country as they organized spectacular heists all around the world. From the late 1980s, these criminals entered the popular imagination largely because of their free-spending ways, their conspicuous waste of money when they did not seem to have any visible means of livelihood. They were celebrated by the leading musicians of the Lagos social scene from the same period; but when Nuhu Ribadu appeared on the scene, even these kingpins of crime found in Ribadu a very hard nut to crack. Ribadu solved the most spectacular 419 case when the Nigerian crime gangs stole an entire bank in Brazil! These were remarkable achievements that Ribadu and indeed all honest and patriotic Nigerians can be proud of!
Nuhu Ribadu entered a political twilight largely because of a combination to circumstances. In the first place, he had lost credibility as a result of the role he played for Obasanjo’s dubious political ends. There was a sense in which truly Nuhu had expired in the political space. Then the new dispensation has been captured by the very criminal political elite that Ribadu was fighting during the Obasanjo regime. It was the criminal elements who financed the massive rigging which brought Yar’adua to power. They seized their moment in the political sun to give Ribadu the comeuppance! The systematic ridiculing of Nuhu that we are witnessing today is the act of vengeance by the political criminals who run the roost in the Yar’adua regime. We have on our hands a very weak president who is perpetually challenged by a lack of legitimacy. The past master of intrigues who have a lot to hide have captured the political space and Nuhu Ribadu must be completely destroyed, because the positive aspects of the work he did must not be allowed to outlive his removal from political limelight.
Nigerians are faced with very difficult choices. We are witnesses today to the complete triumph of the very corrupt governors that Ribadu attempted to fight to a standstill. They financed the rigging which brought Umaru Yar’adua to power and are using their political domination to destroy the fight against corruption. There is a lot of motion and there will eventually be little movement in that area, and the future is very bleak indeed. The criminal elements in power since 1999 are consolidating their position to ensure that nothing can be done to take away their ill-gotten wealth.
By destroying Nuhu Ribadu, they are sending a note of warning that they own Nigeria and all of us can go to hell. Taken against the backdrop of the danger that we face into the future, I think Nuhu Ribadu’s positives outweigh the negatives and his systematic persecution is not just a personal issue. It touches the heart of the problem of corruption in Nigeria. If the corrupt governors win the battle, I think we can forget the battle against corruption, because Mallam Umaru Yar’adua is far too weak and far too compromised to make any positive impact in the setting he finds himself within!
Israel’s security red herring in Nigeria
Last Tuesday, LEADERSHIP newspaper carried on its front page the screaming headline of an alleged “Israel Alert” on terrorism in Nigeria. According to the report, the Ambassador of the Zionist state of Israel in Nigeria, Mr Moshe Ram, told the IGP, Mile Okiro, that Hezbollah had plans “to attack a West African country, possibly Nigeria”. Ram told Okiro who visited the embassy to “ascertain their true security needs”. “The alleged plot was said to have been “uncovered by the Israeli media”.
Ambassador Ram went further that they in the embassy were in a “problematic situation” and then added that “though they did not speak about a specific country there is intelligence and information that speak about this possibility (of a terrorist attack)”. The Zionist state’s ambassador then literally tried to divide the Muslim population in West Africa by adding that “there are Shiite minority in all West Africa. So they anticipate that such an operation might happen. “It has become the habit of the leading imperialist nations, especially the United States, to issue regular terrorism alerts around the work; it is therefore not strange that the Zionist state of Israel and its embassy in Nigeria has also done the same, especially because it is very important for them to demonize the Lebanese Hezbollah party soon after Israel carried out a prisoner exchange with the same organization.
It is equally important to remind the reader that Hezbollah is the only Arab/Muslim organization ever to defeat Israel in war since its creation in 1948. It is the uncompromising stand of that organisation which chased Israel out of its occupation of southern Lebanon. Hezbollah taught a lesson of resistance which Israel and the leading imperialist powers do not want to be replicated. The so-called peace process between Israel and the Palestinians has led nowhere, while the Zionists are systematically grabbing land in the occupied West Bank; they are expending settlements and expelling Palestinians from East Jerusalem to create “facts on the ground” of Jewish domination of the city to make it impossible for the Eastern half of the city to become the capital of any future Palestinian state. Of course, the world looks the other way while Israel carries out its systematic oppression of the Palestinians. It is the continued injustice against the Palestinian people which explains the insecurity of Israel and its lack of popularity around the world.
It is important that our own security apparatus is not sucked into designs which facilitate divisions within our own society. The allusions to “Shiite minorities” are unacceptable from a diplomat; we should not be divided in our country to satisfy the interests of a racist state! Okiro should also promptly reject the “official invitation” to “visit the head of the police in Israel ‘so as to learn how to manage emergency situation,”’ because essentially, he is being offered a visit to see how Israel systematically oppresses the Palestinian people when stripped of all niceties. That cannot be in our national security interest!
