Ribadu's Crosswords with Obasanjo on 23 Alleged Corrupt Governors

By

Senior Fyneface

senior_fyneface@yahoo.com

 

When the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) presented the investigation report on the 23 alleged corrupt state governors to the Senate, President Olusegun Obasanjo did not hide his opposition as he quickly described the report as very “sensational”.

 

Ribadu had revealed during his testimony to the Senate that about 23 state governors have serious allegations of fraud and corruption to answer, but President Obasanjo outrightly contradicted the EFCC Chairman and said “it was not so”. The President tried to emphasize that since investigations were still going on, “the blanket indictment of the governors (by Ribadu) was wrong”.

 

In the President’s unusual advocacy for the accused governors, he explained that “There are series and series of allegations. Many of them spurious, many of them may be worthy of investigation. When I heard the chairman today, he explained that there were allegations, yes there are investigations going on, except in two or three cases, no conclusion has been drawn. How can you say 23 governors are corrupt? So if there is any sensational EFCC report, I don’t think anybody should be unduly disturbed about it.

 

“In fighting corruption, we should ensure innocent people should not suffer. We should ensure that justice is done. We should ensure that there is no cover up. We should ensure that those who smear should not get away with smearing people’s names and damaging people’s reputation. Anybody who has not fallen into the area of corruption has nothing to fear”.

 

The President’s sudden change of tone in his trumpeted anti-corruption campaign raised very serious issues or rather suspicions. Who determines whether an allegation is spurious or worthy of investigation and who declares accused officials guilty or not guilty; the President or EFCC? Where is justice going to be done; at the presidency or in the law courts? Who determines whether a culprit has fallen into the area of corruption; the President or the EFCC?

 

Rather than the present impression that the EFCC was created by the Presidency, it is imperative to re-emphasize that the commission was a creation of the National Assembly. It was  the manner in which the commission went about its duties before now that gave the right impression it was being used by the President to coerce everybody to support whether idea he has about how this country should be governed and by whom.

 

It was a widely known fact the reasons behind the EFCC Chairman’s carpeting of Sani Yerima, the Zamfara State Governor. As soon as it was very obvious that the Zamfara strongman was gaining massive support in his declared ambition to run for the presidency, the EFCC became a willing tool in the hands of the President to clampdown the Zamfara sharia campaigner.

 

Dr Abiye Sekibo, former transport was sacked unceremoniously and accused of complicity in the Chinese railway loan simply because the Okrika-born minister tried to defend and praise his governor, Dr Odili contrary to the President’s new disposition towards the Rivers State Governor. Before he recently made public declaration to run for the presidency, Dr Odili was the President’s adopted son.

 

It should be pointed out and clearly too to the EFCC that though they are instilling fear in the looters of the nation’s coffers, the issues of NPA, NNPC, NDDC, Transcorp, Ajaokuta and Delta Steel companies amongst others cannot be ignored, as evidence of fraud corruption and undue influence peddling abound all over these establishments.

 

From obvious indications, something has terribly gone wrong in the nation’s ‘super fight’ against corruption. For the President to publicly pass a vote of no- confidence on a man he had up until this time used to score pseudo-acclamations for his supposed anti- graft campaign says it all about the relationship between the President and Nuhu Ribadu, the EFCC strongman.

 

Though the President’s contrary position on Ribadu’s declaration on the governors did not come as a surprise, it looks like a cheap popularity gimmick by the President to garner the lost support of most of the state governors in his vindictive fight against his deputy, Atiku Abubakar.

 

What else do you expect from President Obasanjo if not to describe the Ribadu’s report as sensational. Our political system is based on godfatherism. Obviously, the President’s godsons were are among the over 20 governors that have been fully investigated and the cases developed to the point of prosecution. So to the President, the report was simply sensational.

 

More so when President Obasanjo himself has been ‘blindly fingered’ in the NNPC, Transcorp, Eleme Petrochemicals, Ajaokuta and Delta Steel companies, Bell’s University, Presidential Library, MOFAS and Marine Float accounts controversy or rather scandals amongst several other ‘blind transactions’.

 

The President obviously was trying to cower the accused governors into believing that he would not arrest and prosecute them as long they support him against his deputy, Vice President Atiku Abubakar.

 

The mind-blowing revelations by the Atiku camp of the President’s corrupt enrichment of himself through investments and buy over of almost all the public businesses so far privatized in addition to lucrative oil deals are so glaring that they cannot be swept under the carpet this time around if the country wants to be taken serious by the community of nations. The allegations against the President  cannot merely be covered up by promising accused state governors that the EFCC would not prosecute them or by halting further investigations by the EFCC on any government official.

 

Although I cannot defend neither Ribadu as a person or the EFCC in the manner in which they have carried out their duties before now, Nuhu should better get the message from his former boss into his head that his time as the EFCC Chairman is almost up and he should be ready to be dumped or rather sacrificed not without being slammed with heavy charges of corruption and fraud also. #

 

SENIOR FYNEFACE WRITES FROM PORT HARCOURT, RIVERS STATE, NIGERIA