23 Feb 2009 |
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Ribadu’s Slippers And Other Lies. This article is about Nuhu Ribadu, but I will start with Reuben Abati. For long I have had my reservations on the pontification and hoity-toity arguments of Mr. Reuben Abati of the Guardian on several national issues. On three occasions I have had cause to write rejoinders on his submissions with the hope of letting his gullible fans see the true spirit operating in the soul of their hero, but I realized it was not an easy task deconstructing the mindset of people who over a decade or two have been brainwashed through intellectual gimmicks employed by a man richly blessed by God with literally talents. Abati a well read and in-depth analyst comes across as a very patriotic columnist, but a careful reading of his articles would reveal a proclivity towards ethnic superiority. Abati believes his section of the country is genetically wired to be more intelligent, resourceful, useful and perhaps more important than other parts of the country. For instance when Asari Dakubo called Northerners parasites, Reuben Abati was visibly excited. That proclamation from the militant obviously rhymed with his long-held view and thus he rose up in ‘support’ of Asari. While he regarded the insult as a ‘wake up call’ he saw the response from the Northern Governors as an affront. He thus called on the Northern Governors to show ‘some remorse’ and refrain from challenging such extreme, unfair and dehumanizing characterization of their people. That Abati writes with an ethnic perspective has been obvious to many before now, but what he has succeeded in concealing over the years is that he also has his eyes on the big pie or the so-called ‘national cake’. But the cat does not stay in the bag forever. The FCT Minister in a probably innocent gesture, through a land gift in the FCT to Reuben Abati and some other ‘lucky few’, has so effortlessly unveiled the pecuniary agenda of this intellectual guru. The land gift has generated much ruckus in the press with many asking him to speak up. The silent wish of many of his admirers is that this reports should be just one of the many phony reports peddled by Sahara Reporters. They thus wish he would just deny it like he swiftly denounced a mail written by a scammer in his name to solicit money to save his daughter. But Abati has kept mute for over a month now. To be sure, every individual is entitled to receive a gift from another provided any available guiding ethics are not violated and Abati should not be an exception. In my organization for instance, staff are not obliged to disclose gifts from a business partner whether of one or more items if the value does not exceed €50, including corporate gifts which feature the logo of the donor (diaries, calendars etc.) and gifts given during the festive season of the year, for example New Year, Christmas. Staff may receive meals related to a business context of a value not exceeding €100 per person and occasional invitations to events, not exceeding €200 in value per person and not extending over a period of more than one day. So, ordinarily a mere land gift to Abati without any attached conditions should not have raised so much dust especially if the giver of the land were to be a private individual acting in his personal capacity and drawing from his personal resources. But here we have a public officer dishing out government property (I mean public property) to a more or less public figure who is supposed to be a critic of government, and yet Abati by his silence wishes the public should mind their business and leave him alone. Is it therefore high time Abati too began to mind his business and stop poking his nosy pen into public affairs? In lieu of the much-expected clarification about the nature of his involvement in the ‘landgate’, he has chosen to write about Ribadu. And the reason is obvious. What a better way is there, to divert attention from his own ‘scandal’ and perhaps attract some public sympathy than to dish out what majority of Nigerians love to hear? In the article titled: ‘I met Ribadu in Kigali’, Abati attempted to rewrite a distorted history about Ribadu so soon knowing fully that Nigerians have a very short memory. But some of us still remember the facts and will not keep silent even if we are in the minority. To spare himself the headache of being taken to task on why he did not seek clarifications from Ribadu on many of the false claims he (Ribadu) made, he choose to call his encounter with Ribadu a discussion rather than an interview. I am still struggling to understand the difference between an interview and the discussion they eventually had that resulted in this article. The article is sprinkled with barefaced lies and deceit everywhere. Look at this; Ribadu said: ‘We interrogated the Governors, the Senate President, the Vice President. I put a Bank Director, Bulama in handcuffs. The moment we did that, the banks knew immediately that there were no sacred cows’. This is lie number one. The truth is that Ribadu willingly ignored many sacred cows like Bode George, Andy Uba, Iyabo Obasanjo to mention but a few, for which he has been taken to task severally. To date he has not explained why he could not prosecute these people. Lie Number two: ‘If you check, you will notice that the people we went after were actually Obasanjo's people. Alamiyeseigha was very close to the President’. Everybody knows that even though Alamiyeseigha was a PDP man and had access to OBJ but he was an Atiku associate and his problems with EFCC only started when he took sides with the Atiku camp. Ribadu can never swear by Allah that he went against Tafa Balogun or Alamiesagha on his own volition. Why did he make a u-turn on George Akume’s as soon as the man went to pledge loyalty to Obasanjo? Again: ‘Odili was also very close to him. Saminu Turaki was an Obasanjo man’. But what did He do to Odili? I still have the record of an interview in which he said that Odili is a crook but he covered his tracks well and so he had no evidence against him. But somehow he still had some ‘evidence’, which he used to blackmail Odili, and forced him to drop his presidential ambition. That mention of Samiu Turaki being Obasanjo's man is the most deceitful statement by Ribadu. If Ribadu knew this, why did he dismiss (without an investigation?) the confessional statement by Turaki that he gave Obasanjo N10 billion to finance the Third Term project? Ribadu said: ‘I deliberately did not go after the opposition. Yes, we investigated Orji Kalu. We also investigated Bola Tinubu’. So who is Kalu and who Tinubu? Are they not in opposition? Ribadu must be confused or he probably thinks Nigerians are confused. Ribadu said: ‘I know the President's people would have wanted the EFCC to go after a man like Ken Nnamani. But we needed to start with the Obasanjo people to make a point that nobody is above the law. And that was why we investigated the President himself, and we went after his daughter’. At what point did Ribadu go after Iyabo? In Kuru? Or was it in his dreams? How can Ribadu be lying so blatantly in broad daylight? Then he went on: ‘If we want to clean up our country, then let us do it. And that was why I went after Atiku. Atiku is from the same village with me’. So going after Atiku was a mere gambit to show the world he wanted to clean up the country? What did he find on Atiku and why didn’t he charge him to court by the time he eventually lost immunity when he was eager to prosecute him even as a serving VP? This reference to Atiku as one of his culprits is counterproductive for the effect he wishes to create. Can Ribadu honestly beat his chest that had Atiku supported the Third Term project, he would still have gone after him? Atiku has been investigated by FBI without any trace of wrong doing. The court threw out his fake indictment over the PTDF, which Ribadu coordinated. His friend Otunba Fasawe was set free by the courts after Ribadu had branded him a thief. So what does that tell you? Simply that he went after Atiku and his associates for other reasons than corruption, which puts his integrity and sincerity of purpose in doubt. For a man whose only impact was going after Obasanjo’s enemies and some 419 boys for effect, the newfound talk about having investigated the vice president, ministers, governors and the president's daughter is pure hogwash. These were part of his job anyway. This is what he was being paid to do.
Of all the deceits and lies in this article, I find his reference to an only pair of slippers most nauseating. Who cares if Ribadu lacks the etiquette to buy appropriate footwear befitting of an EFCC Chair? But the real nuisance value of this statement lies in its falsehood: Ribadu was not wearing that Slippers at Kuru on the day he showed up at the graduation ceremony in agbada! And it is simply not possible that a man who often spots British suits would go on slippers since 2003! If Ribadu needed a pair of shoes he should simply have asked his magnanimous father-in-law to get one for him just as he bought that house for him in Abuja. The fact that many have applauded his efforts as the premier EFCC chairman does not confer upon him the right to lie.
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