PRESS RELEASE
August 13, 2008
LABOUR PARTY DEPUTY CHAIRMAN SAYS DEMOTION OF FORMER EFCC BOSS WILL DAMPEN
PATRIOTISM AND PROMOTE CORRUPTION
The National Deputy Chairman of the Labour Party (LP), Dr. Joseph
Akinlaja, has condemned the demotion of the former Chairman of the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, as an
action that would demoralise patriotic Nigerians and shoot down the
country’s war against corruption.
“Because Ribadu virtually laid his life down on the line for this
country, the kind of humiliation that his demotion represents will
discourage others from taking risks on behalf of the nation. People will
always refer to this uncharitable treatment he received not out of his
personal misdemeanour but because of a questionable State policy,”
Akinlaja said. “In the interest of the Nigerian nation, we must learn to
celebrate our heroes. Ribadu deserves to be celebrated.”
Akinlaja in a Press Release circulated in Lagos yesterday, said that
dropping Ribadu’s rank from Assistant Inspector General (AIG) to Deputy
Commissioner of Police smacked of ingratitude.
“Like Dr. Dora Akunyili did in NAFDAC, Ribadu in EFCC proved to the
whole world that something good can come out of Nigeria. He is a
first-class officer and he served meritoriously at the risk of his own
life. He brought a new dimension to the country’s fight against
unbridled corruption and won us international recognition,” Akinlaja
said.
The former General Secretary of the National Union of Petroleum and
Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) credited EFCC under Ribadu with bringing both
the high and mighty in Nigeria to book with regards to corrupt practices
and financial misdemeanours.
According to Akinlaja, before Ribadu and the EFCC, there had been several
anti-graft bodies like the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, the
Public Complaints Bureau and the Code of Conduct Bureau. He said all these
operated like toothless bulldogs, with none of them making the mark that
EFCC made.
In his words: “Before Ribadu, public servants indulged in unabashed and
permissive stealing. This display of unbridled impunity led to the near
total collapse of our infrastructural backbone –oil, water, power,
roads, etc.– which resulted in the stunting of our economic development.
But his heading of EFCC laid a minimum standard below which any other
officer leading the war against corruption must not fall.”
He condemned the blanket demotion of police officers erstwhile promoted by
the regime of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, saying, Ribadu should
have been singled out for a different treatment as he deserved to be
retained at his enhanced position of AIG.
According to him, Ribadu’s demotion typified the shoddy treatment the
country’s political leadership used to discourage risk takers. He
referred to Chief Frank Kokori, former NUPENG General Secretary, who spent
four years in detention in Barma Prison without trial for daring the
Military over the struggle for June 12, yet remains an unsung and
unrewarded hero of democracy.
Joining issues with those wont to dismiss Ribadu’s fight against
corruption as selective, Akinlaja submitted: “If he was selective, the
question to ask is: Were those he selectively prosecuted guilty or
innocent? If they were guilty, they should serve as deterrent to others.
And anyway, any attempt on his part to launch a universal fight against
corrupt people simultaneously would have rendered EFCC ineffective.”
He described such criticism as diversionary saying, “A Yoruba adage says
that instead of blaming the owner for carelessly keeping his property, we
should all jointly condemn the thief.”
He wondered why the Police Service Commission failed to show courage and
reject the promotion when it initially took place.
The LP Deputy Chairman recalled how he and his party Chairman, Comrade Dan
Nwuanyanwu, had approached Mallam Ribadu over the case of Dr. Olusegun
Mimiko, who had left the ruling People’s Democratic Party to become LP
Governorship Candidate in Ondo State. They visited the EFCC boss after
then President Olusegun Obasanjo accused the former Minister of Housing
and Urban Development during a public campaign of being liable to EFCC
prosecution for corruption.
In the words of Akinlaja: “Ribadu told us that he had no petition
against Mimiko. And that even if he had, he would investigate the
allegation thoroughly and dispassionately. I particularly remember him as
saying, ‘I will not allow myself to be used against an innocent person
if he is innocent.’ And true enough, till today, nothing happened to
Mimiko, despite his defecting to a party other than the ruling PDP. If he
was a man that danced to the tune of his employers, Ribadu would certainly
have found Dr. Mimiko guilty on cooked up charges.”
Dr. Akinlaja said Ribadu’s tenure as EFCC Chairman had taken the country
far from the era of General Ibrahim Babangida, whom the LP boss accused of“democratising” corruption.
According to him, in Yoruba, bribery was known as owo ehin (i.e. money
taken in secret) but during and after the military regime people now
negotiate the quantum of money for bribe.
DR. JOSEPH AKINLAJA
National Deputy Chairman (South), Labour Party