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Olabode George And The NPA Raiders: Will Crusader Ribadu Have The Guts To Clean The Augean Stable? By Dozie Ikem Ezeife, Esq. Oakland, California
The Nuhu Ribadu led Committee overview and Verification of Contracts awarded by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) between 2001 and 2003 recently submitted their report to President Olusegun Obasanjo. The report uncovered large-scale fraud and financial recklessness during the period they reviewed. The Committee went forward in their report to recommend the recovery of the misappropriated funds and to prosecute the responsible parties. The Committee openly and unqualifiedly indicted the NPA Board (which was chaired by Retired Navy Captain Olabode George). Bode George is the Peoples Democratic Party’s National Vice-Chair for the South-West and is reputed to be a close ally of President Olusegun Obasanjo. In the words of the Chair of the Committee, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, “most of these contracts were awarded without due regard to extant rules and regulations which has resulted in NPA accumulated huge contract debt running into billions of naira without corresponding value to the Authority”. Continuing, he emphatically declared that “the committee has established that the Board and Management of the NPA during the period under review are responsible for the flagrant violation of the extant government rules and regulations on award of contracts.” The President desultorily thanked the Committee for their brilliant job but uncharacteristically did not blow his top on Bode for his alleged complicity in fleecing the NPA. Recall that several months ago the President rushed off a telecast lambasting the disgraced former Senate President Adolphus Wabara and the then Education Minister over the N55m budget bribery scandal. Those “gentlemen” were never given the courtesy of trial and conviction before the President found them guilty and read the riot act on them on the airwaves. One wonders why Boy George did not receive the same treatment from the Prez. And we say there are no sacred malus in Obj’s war against corruption. Give me a break! Let me go out on a limb here and speculate that had such an Investigative Committee made a similar finding on Buhari’s tenure at the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), he would have been in chains by now in Kirikiri. So much for the celebrated war against corruption. The general huffs and puffs only against his critics and detractors. Never against his buddies. That is why up till today the EFCC has not done anything about the billions of naira that the Ministry of works collected from the nation’s coffers between 1999 and 2003 and has no roads to show for it. And those who had explaining to do are strutting around the nation unmolested and unperturbed by the strident protests of critics of the administration. Many hold the view that inspite of the much publicized successes of the EFCC under Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, the EFCC is nothing but a tool for OBJ’s intimidation of his actual and perceived political enemies. With the indictment of Bode George and his NPA Board by this report, the die is cast and the stage is set. The NPA and the Bode George Saga could not have come at a more auspicious moment to test the truth or falsity of Ribadu’s critics. The only way Mallam Nuhu Ribadu can rid himself of this proverbial monkey on his back is to parade Boy George in chains on national television. Only a robust and aggressive prosecution of Olabode George and his accomplices on the defunct Board and Management of the NPA will turn the doubting Thomas (including this writer) into genuine disciples of the Crusader, Mallam Ribadu.
Dozie Ikem Ezeife, Esq. Oakland, California
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