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When
the former President Olusegun Obasanjo capriciously decided to accord the
erstwhile Chairman of the EFCC, Nuhu Ribadu, double promotion from Assistant
Commissioner of Police to Assistant Inspector General of Police, the decision
faced varied criticisms. Some argued that, if at all such promotion was to be
carried out, there was a need for the imprimatur of the Police service
commission to have been sought before such a move was ratified, whilst some
argued that the promotion was simply superfluous. There was also a claxon that
Nuhu Ribadu lacked the experience to be worthy of that promotion. But
unfortunately, the former President, being an inexorable aficionado of
absolutism, thought his decision, as always, was final. Indeed, it was.
So, by
making Ribadu an AIG, he hierarchically became next in command to the supremo
of the Nigeria Police Force - the Inspector General of Police. And it is a
plain commonsense that, by default, the Assistant Inspector General(AIG) of
Police is under the COMMAND of the Inspector General of Police(IG). Thus, Mr
Mike Okiro, being the Inspector General of Police in the Federal Republic of
Nigeria, is, in order of hierarchy of the Nigeria Police Force, superior to
Nuhu Ribadu, who is a mere ASSISTANT under him. It goes without saying that the
IG Mike Okiro is the Oga of Nuhu Ribadu. Therefore, Nuhu Ribadu is
ACCOUNTABLE to Mike Okiro.
Having been
previously appointed the Chairman of the EFCC, an agency under the auspices of
the presidency, Nuhu Ribadu is also ACCOUNTABLE to the supremo of the Nigerian
presidency - the sitting President, which is currently occupied by Alhaji Umar
Yar'dua, but whose legitimacy is still a subject of litigation. So, this makes
Nuhu Ribadu simultaneously ACCOUNTABLE to two bosses - the President and the
IG. But being that the position of the Chairman of EFCC is a political
appointment, Nuhu Ribadu is more of a Policeman more than anything else because
the Nigeria Police Force is his primary constituency.
But
meanwhile, in the Police Order Act, which Nuhu Ribadu consented to before being
admitted into the Nigeria Police Force, all officers above the rank of
Assistant Commissioner of Police are required to pass through the National
Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), in Kuru Plateau State, which Nuhu Ribadu is yet to
fulfill.
Just as it
is everywhere in the World, where parastatals and establishments occasionally
review the qualifications and credentials of their employees and workers, the
Nigeria Police Force, under the leadership of IG Mike Okiro, reviewed the
credentials of its officers. In this review, it was noticed that some of its
top officers, like AIG Nuhu Ribadu, were yet to obligatorily fulfill the
compulsory attendance of leadership training at the National Institute of
Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS); and just as any establishment or parastatal
anywhere in the World would do, Nigeria Police Force simply asked AIG Nuhu
Ribadu - NOT in his capacity as the EFCC Chairman but AIG - to go and pass
through this leadership training.
But
surprisingly, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, as well as his fans, was chagrined that IG
Mike Okiro could ask the whole RIBADU, the superhuman anti-corruption czar
directly sent from God to sanitize Nigeria, to go to Kuru and undergo this
required NIPSS training. Ribadu especially, the man that fancies himself as the
Jesus Christ of Nigeria, saw the action of the IG as nothing short of anathema.
He could not understand why he, of all people, should condescend to go on
compulsory nine-month study at the NIPSS.
Nuhu
Ribadu, in his galling hubristic crassitude, could not keep quiet at this
perceived sacrilege. He, together with his supporters and minions, hurled
paroxysms of innuendoes at the government of President Umar Yar’dua for
removing him from the leadership of the EFCC surreptitiously. Some of his
ardent but misguided fans have even circulated petitions throughout the world,
urging President Umar Yar’dua to rescind his decision forthwith. They say, the
removal of Nuhu Ribadu from the leadership of EFCC would bring the
anti-corruption war into atrophy.
In their words,
“Nuhu Ribadu is the only one that can fight corruption in Nigeria”. Hogwash! Is the job of the EFCC
Chairman a Rocket science that nobody else can perform in the country of
140million people? I am befuddled by the logic of the people that have been perfervidly
theorizing this incongruity.
I have
searched in vain to find anywhere in the law of the Nigerian Police which
stipulates that its top officers from the rank of Commissioner must
compulsorily pass through the NIPSS leadership training, where a man called
Nuhu Ribadu is to be exempted from this standing rule and regulation.
Why must
Ribadu be treated differently from other officers of Nigerian Police who have
passed through this training? Does it not occur to the people spouting this
obtuse advocacy that one of the scourges that have essentially invigorated
corruption in Nigeria is nepotism, which they have been
inadvertently supporting? Does it not even occur to Mr Nuhu Jesus Christ Ribadu
himself that by parading himself as AIG without fulfilling the pre-requisite of
undergoing the NIPSS training, he is simply stamping poseur on his forehead,
which, in itself, is one of the attributes of a corrupt mind?
Why is Nuhu
Ribadu, the man that is already infamous for his nauseating ribaldry and utter
disdain for etiquette and rule of law, poised to exacerbate his obloquy by not
doing the right thing of complying with the Police Order Act?
Rather than
holding him responsible for his culpability in the orchestrated derailment of
their democracy by invidiously indicting certain politicians without proper
prosecution before the elections, which was largely appurtenant to the
actualization of the “do-or-die” creed of Obasanjo, Ribadu is incredibly being
apotheosized to the heavens by some Nigerians.
This was
the same Ribadu that solemnly declared Obasanjo a Saint in the PTDF saga, but
only for independent investigation to reveal that it was this shameless
curmudgeon himself that was pilfering from the PTDF through his proxies and
licentiously instructing his factotums to be showering largess on his
concubines and cronies from the purse of the PTDF. This was the same Ribadu
that visited Ibadan and literally declared Akala and
Adebidu as unadulterated specimens of corruption but only for Akala’s name to
be conspicuously missing in his compiled list of corrupt Nigerians that were to
be disqualified from contesting elections.
This was
the same Ribadu that repeatedly thumbed his noise at the Courts and
superciliously disrespected the AGF. This was the same Ribadu that was, shortly
after the “do-or-die” elections, openly rejoicing with the renegades in the
ruling party at the PDP retreat.
Why are
Nigerians losing their objectivity over this charlatan who has repeatedly
demonstrated his unabated solidarity with their number one enemy, Olusegun
Obasanjo? Do Nigerians really think Ribadu is fighting corruption with his
schmaltziness?
Given the
litany of jiggery-pokery and shtick of Ribadu over the years concerning
Obasanjo, are Nigerians not romanticizing fantasy by thinking Obasanjo was ever
going to be actually probed by the EFCC under him?
Well,
considering the way some pudden-headed caterwaulers were moronically blathering
that, without Obasanjo, Nigeria would disintegrate, I am not
surprised that this same bovine postulation is being advanced about Nuhu
Ribadu.
It’s been
close to a year that the tenancy of this former President expired at the
Aso-Rock, in which he had retaken over his rightfully deserving and
commensurate status as the President of the chickens and cows at one Farm in
Otta, Ogun-State, but Nigeria is still standing till today and water has not
stopped to flow down the 4,000-kilometer course of River Niger.
We should
stop getting unduly sentimental about Nuhu Ribadu; the IG is doing the right
thing by asking him to attend the NIPSS training. If Ribadu feels he is too big
to attend the NIPSS training as the Act of the NPF stipulates because he is
EFCC Chairman, then he can go to hell.
Enough of
all this nonsense of one scrofulous tyke holding the whole Country into ransom
in the name of fighting corruption.
Yinka Leo
Ogundiran
Presidency_yk@yahoo.com
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Posted by Robot| 23.09.2008 10:51