Ribadu’s Insincerity On The N50 Million Senate Bribe Scandal

By

Senior Fyneface

seniorfyneface@yahoo.com

 

 

When critics of Nuhu Ribadu, Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) accuse him of abusing the enormous powers of the commission, it has always been dismissed as political attacks on his boss, President Olusegun Obasanjo. Meanwhile, the EFCC strongman either by himself or his boss has been crowned the sole determinant of what constitutes financial crime in Nigeria.

 

As an aftermath of the failure of the unpopular third term agenda of President Olusegun Obasanjo the anti- third term Senators and Federal House members alleged that senators who supported the third term bid were given N50 million each, while House of Representatives members got N40million. This was the accusation made with some tangible evidence at least as at that time.

 

The senators who reported the alleged bribe scandal did that with the clear intention that the EFCC would have immediately gone into full investigation of the matter but they miscalculated as the issue was rather turned into a political vendetta by the commission.

 

In a recent BBC interview Ribadu openly declared that the EFCC couldn’t investigate the alleged N50 million bribe scandal involving lawmakers because of “insufficient evidence”. What a contradiction.

 

It was unfair for Ribadu to say “so far nobody has provided his commission with concrete evidence to enable it investigate the matter. How do we investigate when we have insufficient facts?” he said

 

The question is: Whose responsibility is it to dig for evidence or facts of the matter- the accusers or Ribadu’s EFCC?

 

Has Ribadu’s commission gone to the banks mentioned in the allegation to dig for facts? Has he invited any of the senators that raised the allegation to provide more facts? To say that the commission cannot take any action because of “insufficient evidence” was an insult to the Nigerian masses because Ribadu has not told us what he did with the little evidence he got from the anti-third term senators before the complaint that it was insufficient.

 

The same Ribadu had earlier told the US House of Representatives Sub-Committee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations that the EFCC was already probing the bribe-for-vote scandal in the National Assembly during the aborted third term debate. .

 

Ribadu also told the American lawmakers that the EFCC is determined to find those who got money, with a view to preventing them from using such money to influence the 2007 elections. "We are making progress, tracking allegations that might have impact on next year's presidential election campaign," he said.

 

When will Ribadu and the EFCC break free of the presidency and become non-selective in its pursuit of perpetrators of financial crimes? Until that is done, the fight against corruption both in the public and private sector of the nation’s economy will remain a lost battle.

 

 

SENIOR FYNEFACE, JP, VETERAN JOURNALIST, FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER, COMMUNITY LEADER & PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR WRITES FROM PORT HARCOURT