« ROLE OF HUMAN RESOURCES’ (HR) MANAGERS DURING ECONOMIC CRISIS. | Home | PEACE TO THE WORLD IN 2009. »
CORRUPTION FIGHTS RIBADU.
By Louis Brown Ogbeifun | December 28, 2008
Corruption is the deviation from the norms and ideals of transparency, accountability, honesty, truth and the engagement of people in self-serving activities to actualize selfish interests at the expense of the larger society. Corruption is a non-restrictive practice and it knows no boundary, culture, race, religion, sex, black or white. It is found in the nooks and crannies of every nation, whether emerging or developed. It is both in the family unit and in the broad spectrum of society. In many nations, it is the reason why workers want tips before performing their official functions. It is the reason why there are several pen robbers that aggrandize the resources of the masses for selfish reasons. It is the reason why people falsify their real ages to stay longer in service. It is the reason why so many religious leaders and organizations twist doctrines for the purpose of attracting to themselves unholy perks at the expense of the salvation of their followers. It is the reason why corporate organizations falsify profits to avoid taxation. It is the reason for rigging elections by politicians (remember the Florida debacle over the election results of Al-gore and George Bush) and the 2007 elections in Nigeria. It is the reason for the inducement of vulnerable voters to sell their voting rights and conscience to make up votes for the ruling class. It is the reason for negotiating to sell Obama’s vacant seat to the highest bidder in God’s own country. It is the reason why oil illegally bunkered in Nigeria end up in “corruption free” advanced nations without qualms.
In Africa, it is the reason why majority of African rulers steal money meant for our common heritage and stash it in foreign banks; without those foreign governments seeing themselves as aiding and abetting immoral and corrupt acts, only to see us as the corrupt ones while they are the saints. It is the reason for turning ebullient and energetic youths to political thugs to snatch ballot boxes and assassinate political opponents. It is the reason for high level miscarriage of justice. It is the reason why law enforcement agents are unable to unravel criminal activities committed by the elites. It is the reason for sacrificing meritocracy for tribal and parochial interests. It is the reason why governments overrun other sovereignties to protect their own interests rather than national interests. It is the reason for the instability of the world’s political and socio-economic order. It is the reason why a poor folk wants to ride an exotic car and live in high brow areas even without any means of livelihood. It is the reason why public servants (both political and civil) own uncountable number of cars and estates without going through any mortgage house. It is the reason for several broken marriages, examination malpractices, harassment of female students and cultism educational institutions.
Therefore, corruption is not just taking and giving of bribes. It could be moral, political, social, economic and religious. It is effusive, pervasive, infectious and highly globalized. All the actors that partake in, and eulogize corruption are corruption per excellence. Corruption is human. It has voice, flesh, teeth and fangs. It is highly professional. It is there wherever we go. Corruption cuts across classes and strata of societies. It is found in low and high places. Those at the low level engage in it to make ends meet. The practitioners in high places engage in it not for lack of want, but to keep political, social and economic powers so that they can lord it over the majority in perpetuity. Those that engage in it sleep and wake with it. They are conscienceless, deadly and are anything but the devil incarnate.
Corruption has killed so many visions and people. Corruption (in this article is a collection of individuals from all backgrounds) at one time or another denied Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Chief Kashimawo Abiola, Chief Gani Fawehinmi and Professor Pat Utomi of becoming the Presidents of Nigeria. So, when one sets out to fight corruption in a place like Nigeria, it is like voluntarily opting to go to the hottest axis of the war front. As an anti corruption agent, one is doomed both in the course of the fight and after the fight because the results of the assaults remain indelible and those victims continue to leak their wounds long after one has left the scene. When the anti corruption agents can no longer enjoy the protection of the State, corruption goes after them to seek revenge. It is like fighting a man that has sophisticated weapons with bare hands. Only a few people have fought corruption without being consumed. Therefore, so many mortals would rather tread softly in their advocacy against corruption because corruption being human has the tendency to fight back in a very ruthless manner.
In Nigeria, the list of those who tried to fight corruption with burning desires and zeal in order to steer up a revolution that will demolish oppression, repression, corruption and human rights abuses; had corruption fighting them back in a ferocious manner. They faced frustrations, incarceration, intimidation and abuses. Some got killed in the process. Others died out of the cumulative effect of the stress of fighting corruption. They include, Adaka Boro, Dele Giwa, Dr. Beko Kuti, the social crusader and musician Fela Ransome Kuti, Ken Saro Wiwa, Chima Ubani and Tai Solarin; all of blessed memory. Those still living have persistently remained the targets of the man corruption. They include Alozie Ogugbuaja (the author of the military men as pepper soup drinkers and coup plotters), Gani Fawehinmi, Femi Falana, Nuhu Ribadu et al.
Of these, Ribadu and Alozie Ogugbuaja, both Police Officers tend to have a common heritage. They seem to have the same point of embarkation and are likely to have the same point of disembarkation. Alozie got recruited into the Police Force with the sole aim of being part of the radical reform process of the decaying police system while Ribadu was brought to help rid the nation of corruption by former President Olusegun Obasanjo. For me, they are gallant officers because they looked at corruption in the face and spat on it. But one common lesson they did not learn quick enough is that the worm that destroys the kola nut eats it from the inside. They were outspoken against the mafias in our society without considering that one needs some level of empowerment, self preservation and cover to win against corruption. They forgot that for a man to win the war against corruption, one has to stoop to conquer. They fought corruption on pages of newspapers instead of using the tactics of an ardent crime fighter - “less visibility, less talk, more work and element of surprises”.
As a recap for those not familiar with Alozie’s story, he was the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) of the Nigerian Police Force during the regime of General Ibrahim Babangida. In his own account, one of the propelling inner drives that took him into the Police Force was the brutal murder of twenty eight defenceless coal miners and wounded others on the orders of Sir Philips, a British officer during our colonial days. The coal miners were on industrial action to protest poor wages. Despite the fact that the panel set up to look into this tragedy proclaimed that a mistake was made by the officer’s judgement, he was recalled to Britain and knighted by the Queen. He saw in this a miscarriage of justice. If it were now, Sir Philips would have been summoned to the Hague.
On entrance into the Force, he discharged his duties with love and fearlessness. He was ready to serve his father land with all the zeal and energy desired. He refused entreaties of extortion and bribes. He became the goliath of the oppressed officers. In trying to bring to the fore, the unfair salary disparity between the police and the military at that time; Alozie accused the military’s high command of secretly increasing their own pay when indeed the military officers did nothing but sit in the officers’ mess drinking pepper soup and plotting coups (at that time coups and counter coups were popular all over Africa). The military felt insulted and started a gradual compression of Alozie’s jugular.
First he was relieved of his position and then suspended. He headed for the court. At the end of the struggle, the court restored his rights and he was recalled. He later suffered multiple transfers and derogatory postings. Just like the cases of this nature, it only took only a while to frame him up and had him dismissed. He is however lucky to be alive to tell the story. Today, Alozie, a mass communication graduate of old cannot be said to have fully recovered from the socio-economic dislocations he suffered from the pepper soup saga.
Alozie’s history is replaying itself in Nuhu Ribadu, the erstwhile TSAR of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). They represent the same side of the coin. He was appointed the pioneer Chairman of EFCC by President Olusegun Obasanjo (OBJ) in 2003. The Act that established EFCC mandates it to combat financial and economic crimes”. Though he was brave and courageous in the discharge of his duties; the absolute nature of the operations of EFCC under Ribadu, especially between 2004 and 2005 earned him the toga of the “Tsar of EFCC”. He sent chills down the spines of the hitherto political and economic mafia and untouchables in the country.
As the President Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN); I disagreed and still disagree with Mike Adenuga the business mongul on his posture to labour related issues in his companies (BELBOP and CON OIL). Despite this, I disliked the way he was humiliated just because he was perceived of having business interests with General Ibrahim Babangida, a man Obasanjo hates to love. Others treated in like manner were Uzor Kalu’s mother and Tafa Balogun, the former inspector General of Police who had fell out favour with Obasanjo. EFCC fell short of using bulldozers to scavenge the offices and homes of these people. He turned the Vice president of the Federal Republic, Atiku Abubakar to his foot mat just because he was on the other side of the President. He used very derogatory languages in the Hallow Chambers of the National assembly on some of the serving Governors. These actions were not in line with due process and the rule of law.
I have no qualms about EFCC or ICPC inviting suspected looters of the treasury for questioning or prosecuting them; but never should any organization apply the wrong process pursuing a just and lawful course. Where investigations implicate any person for betraying the people’s mandate, such person should be made to face the music. All accused persons deserve some level of humane treatment. It is always said that an accused person is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of competent jurisdiction. Even a man sentenced to death for whatever reasons deserves his human dignity until his execution and nobody should be pronounced guilty on pages of newspapers before the courts so declare. Ribadu as a lawyer knows this but in his own wisdom decided to do otherwise. He was fond of ignoring the orders of the court and unknown to him; he will someday approach that same judiciary for succour. As a matter of fact, it is only the judiciary that can save Ribadu at this point.
Ribadu found several persons guilty even before approaching the courts. He used State apparatuses to muscle members of the some State Assemblies to undertake the impeachment of their Speakers in other to get at their Governors. Some of the impeachments were carried out outside the specified hours of business. Some were carried out at night, some in the wee hours of the morning; some were carried out by proxy, others in hotel rooms while others took place at Abuja. These were outright breaches of our constitution. Agencies of government should allow the judiciary to be the final bus stop in the determination of guilt.
The height of his indiscretion was mixing politics with his job by pitching his tent with the then President to nail those not aligned to the third term project President Obasanjo. When Ribadu looked into the activities of PTDF; he found Atiku guilty and OBJ was exenorated. The Senate also looked at the same PTDF activities and exenorated atiku. Ribadu fell short of calling the highest ledislative chambers nuisance. In addition, he told Nigerians that he had enough evidence to send almost all the Governors that served from 1999 to 2007 to jail. Unfortunately, even when the Governors lost their immunity in May 2007, only a handful were picked up and the few that have been prosecuted came out convicted on plea bargain platform.
Now, the questions being asked are: where then are the incriminating evidence against these Governors? What kind of system will leave someone accused of converting billions of naira of public funds to his private use only to be asked to release some hundreds of millions and to keep more than half the loot? As soon as President Obasanjo left, corruption started the plot to destroy Ribadu by taking the following steps in quick succession.
Step one.
He was removed from EFCC to Nigeria Institute Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) at Kuru. If only he knew how to play the game of self preservation at Kuru; I thought it would have helped him to make the place a restoration and introspection centre. Unfortunately he did not see the handwriting on the wall. Rather than help to stop most of the media hype about him while a student he did not.
Step two.
To make him ineligible to continue his programme he was demoted from the rank of Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) to Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) on the excuse that due process was not followed in his accelerated promotion. The police Service Commission said that accelerated promotion can only be carried out for gallantry and other special circumstances as determined by the body. Perhaps gallantry in this sense will mean fishing out, dismantling armed robbery syndicates and killing armed robbers the way Parry Osayende did during the Anini saga.
If killing robbers or putting down insurgencies alone will pass for gallantry then they miss the point. What led our country to the valley of indebtedness, rot, underdevelopment, poverty and hunger was not armed robbery but 419 and pen robbery perpetrated against the State by our past leaders. Those fighting armed robbers and the pen robbers face unpredictable ends just like Ribadu is now facing the tough times from the hands of the man corruption.
In every organization, there are egg heads and high fliers that are promoted on accelerated basis though such promotions do not necessarily breach corporate procedure guidelines. I also believe that irrespective of his shortcomings, what he did in EFCC could simply pass for gallant acts that merit some level of upliftment, if not, it will be very difficult for any officer to stick out his or her neck in the name of patriotism to fight corruption.
Step three.
After his studentship, he was immediately deployed to an office that will make him irrelevant and true to anticipation, reports had it that he refused to report to Edo state. When this posting took place he would have used the power of hind sight on Alozie’s case to plan his exit strategy. He did not. The question is, would he have been sitting doing nothing before his case in court against the Police is disposed? He forgot that he was still a member of the Force and must obey the orders of the Inspector General of Police and the Police high command.
Step four.
He was invited to EFCC; he refused to honour the invitation until lately.
Step five.
He was invited to see the Inspector General of police; he did not honour the invitation. Again Ribadu forgot that he voluntarily opted to serve under the prescribed ethos and ethics of a command structure that abhors insurbordination. Within a short period, he refused to answer the calls of EFCC and the Police. He refused to wear the uniform when he, in company of other Force men paid a courtesy call on President Yar’Adua and during his graduation. He refused to explore the option of internal remedies of his constituency and proceeded to sue the Inspector General of Police, the Police Service Commission, the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) to Court and then the ECOWAS Court thereby complaining before obeying the orders from above. In a command structure this is a grievous error of judgement.
Step six.
It was said that Ribadu was invited twice to appear before the panel set up by the Police, he also refused to put up appearance.
Step seven.
The panellists returned a guilty verdict on Ribadu and he was aptly dismissed. All the invitations to Ribadu were ploys to give the dog a bad name for easy hanging. The Police authourities knew Ribadu will not honour the invitations neither was he going to report to the new post as a Deputy Commissioner of Police. Again he played into their hands on the pretext that the invitation was a ploy to arrest him. How can a man that said that he was ready to die fighting corruption be afraid of mere arrest? Perhaps he suddenly realized that what he did to others in an undignified manner was to befall him. In all these, Ribadu who had said several times that no one was above the law was not only above the law but was law himself.
Looking at the process above, one can see the similarity and the replay of Alozie’s travails in the Police Force in that that of Ribadu. The end is known and likely to follow the path below:
- More than 45 lawyers including Femi Falana, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, several SANs and others will appear to defend Ribadu at no cost.
- The court is likely to return a verdict of restoration of his rights and bring him back to the Force for not having fair hearing.
- The Police will appeal through the layers of hierarchy to the Supreme Court to wear him down psychologically. If the Supreme court also favours him the Police will have no optioon but to restore him.
- By the time Ribadu is finally restored if at all, most of his junior officers would have become his seniors and possibly one of them the IG.
- He will be posted to a redundant position and frustrated. They may become so vicious that Ribadu will be forced to voluntarily throw in the towel (ask Alozie about his experience).
While going through these travails, he might be invited or arrested and quizzed by EFCC to account for the donations from the donor agencies and how he managed his budget for the period as the Chairman of EFCC. He might also be expected to give a detailed account of the total money received and how much was returned to the various states from the repatriated loots.
It is a known fact that the real offence of Ribadu is that he did not maintain the balance in his war against the political class. He made it clear that the man dictating the pace of the war was the former President. He and Obasanjo were the only saints in the entire nation and all others were thieves. He fought his war on pages of newspapers and opened his bosses and the President of the Federal republic to public ridicule during his removal as Chairman of the EFCC. In reaction to this, I said in the Tsar of EFCC goes to school “No matter the good intentions of those in this school of thought that Ribadu is indispensable as the Chairman of EFCC; they only succeeded in pitching Ribadu against the government, created two Inspector Generals of Police and two Presidents of the Federal Republic: one in Ribadu and the others in Okiro and Yar’Adua”.
In the game of boxing, you never open your guards that gives cover to your face, temple and the abdomen but Ribadu did. He opened his flanks and allowed his enemies to know his weakest link and that precisely is what they are using against him now. He made people feel that these corrupt elements were his personal enemies instead of making them the enemies of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Nigerian people. It was a fight on behalf of the Nigerian people. Unfortunately, EFCC under him was Ribadu personified. Above all, he shot himself in the foot by showing utter disrespect to his bosses in the Police Force, forgeting that, that same Police Force produced him and that someday they might have the power to take certain decisions on him.
It is sycophantic and hypocritical to support Ribadu’s antics and refusal to obey the orders of his Superior Police Officers. I am sure he could not have taken this from his subordinates when he held sway at EFCC in his capacity as the Chairman. Anything short of “obey before complaint” in a command structure is insubordination and the punishment is well known to Ribadu.
Be that as it may, Ribadu should not have been thrown away like the baby inside the dirty bath tub. I feel so concerned because I can see our tax payers’ money used in training the likes of Alozie and Ribadu wasted. Egg heads have their bad sides. Those of us who played the game of football have seen demeanours of stars in action. It takes methodical patience on the side of a good coach to manage them because they win games for their teams.
If the dismissal of Ribadu stayed, I can see the apathy this will bring to genuine minds who want to become anti-corruption crusaders after the ashes of Ribadu’s travails settle. There is nobody outside the shores of this nation that will believe that Ribadu was dismissed for indiscipline as pronounced by the Police. His dismissal is seen as a form of victimization and it will take a lot of image laundering and huge resources to remove this bias. The only way Government can instil the much needed confidence in the international community is to tamper justice with mercy on Ribadu’s case by bringing him back.
Questions are already being asked. Why must a man lose his head for a country that cannot protect him against those he offended in the course of carrying out official duties on behalf of the State? Could there have been no other way of using internal instruments to deal with Ribadu without the dismissal option so that the 419ers and those he prosecuted do not take credit for his travails?.
On Mallam el-Rufai, the former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT); it is also not the rosiest of times as well because he has been declared wanted by the EFCC. In his case, nature has shown that it never completely smile at us on our journey through this portal. It does not also forget to pay us in our own coins according to our deeds to our fellow men.
Our own el-Rufai is claiming to be studying now in the UK and therefore, unable to answer the call of EFCC. The same man used his agents to attempt a forceful eviction of Dr. (Mrs.) Timiebi Koripamo Agary, the former Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Labour and Productivity on March 1, 2007 when she was on official duty abroad. He also cannot claim to have respect for the rule of law because he flagrantly disobeyed the courts of our lands during his time as the FCT Minister.In this instance, an order of
interim injunction was made by a court in FCT on February 19, 2007 restraining the FCT from evicting Agary. Due to the enormous powers of the FCT Minister and his immunity from OBJ; Agary was removed as Permanent Secretary by the former President. But for this present administration, she would have ended her public service career abruptly.
Secondly, the former Chairman of Code of Conduct Bureau, Justice Bashir Sambo, an elderly man who had lived in his house for more than 10 years and had paid N65 million for the house was forcefully evicted from the house despite an injunction on August 3, 2006 restraining the FCT from evicting him. The trauma of this ordeal has been implicated by family members as the primary cause of his death. The same el-Rufai, who in the above instances played God, has approached the court to restrain some of the agents he used against Nigerians during his time as the Minister of FCT. What an irony of fate? What he is going through now is a fulfilment of the law of cause and effect. So, let him remember after this ordeal when dealing with others that what goes around comes around.
Wherever we go, let us carry in our pouches, the reasoning that policies are made for the comfort and safety of man and it is only when alive that one can reap the benefits of such policies. Therefore, policies should be implemented at all times with human face. Public officers should learn to respect institutions outside theirs because no one can tell when one needs the help of the other; just like Ribadu and el-Rufai who in their height of administrative arrogance despised the judiciary they now look unto for succour and bail out.
Knowing that the measure we use for others will be used for us some day, all the stakeholders in the two cases above should endeavour to follow due process in dealing with these officers. They should not do things that will reflect any shade of vengeance. After all; the officers served the state the way they thought fit and to the best of their abilities. Irrespective of what el-Rufai did wrongly, he stepped on toes to partly restore the Abuja master plan. On Ribadu’s part, the removal of Nigeria’s name from the blacklist of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) marked the highpoint of his service and this must be credited to EFCC and the Obasanjo administration.
The long public holidays have possibly played down the story of Ribadu’s dismissal and el-Rufai’s travails on the pages of newspapers. Surely, these are not the best of times for them. In most part of the New Year, the case of the man corruption versus the man Ribadu on one side, and the EFCC versus el-Rufai on the other side will be the main menu of our national discourse. All I can wish them now is Good luck and Happy New Year in advance!
Notes
http://www.dawodu.com/orkar.htm http://www.ugandaruralcommunitysupport.org/2000/06/30/home-coming-at-last-30-june-2000/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dele_Giwahttp://odili.net/news/source/2008/aug/10/507.htmlhttp://www.punchontheweb.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art200804111573726 http://news.biafranigeriaworld.com/archive/2006/06/index.php
http://www.triumphnewspapers.com/archive/DT06032007/index.html
The Tsar of EFCC Goes to school in http://www.louisbrownogbeifun.com
Youpele Banigo in http://www.dawodu.com/banigo1.htm
Topics: Uncategorized |
December 29th, 2008 at 5:29 am
[…] Vote CORRUPTION FIGHTS RIBADU. […]
December 29th, 2008 at 5:47 am
[…] Vote CORRUPTION FIGHTS RIBADU. […]
December 30th, 2008 at 10:04 am
A Specific Application of Employment, Interest and Money
Plea for an Adventure in a New World Economic Order
Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes and Alan Greenspan: a Unified Perspective
Abstract:
This tract makes a critical analysis of credit based, free market economy, Capitalism, and proves that its dysfunctions are the result of the existence of credit.
It shows that income / wealth disparity, cause and consequence of credit, is the first order hidden variable, possibly the only one, of economic development.
It solves most of the puzzles of macro economy: among which Business Cycles, Stagflation, Greenspan Conundrum and Keynes’ Liquidity Trap…
It shows that Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, Karl Marx and Alan Greenspan don’t contradict each other but that they each bring a meaningful contribution to a same framework for understanding macro economy.
It proposes a credit free, free market economy as a solution that would correct all of those dysfunctions.
In This Age of Turbulence People Want an Exit Strategy out of Credit, an Adventure in a New World Economic Order.
Read It.
October 6th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
Enthusiasm! Very like the style of the author and the presentation of ideas, even dazzled, when reading. The author thanks for the positive emotions.