Follow-up on anti-corruption campaign in Nigeria
Analysis from London's Financial TimesNigeria anti-graft drive facing threat
"Powerful Nigerian politicians are seeking to derail attempts to fight high-level corruption by weakening the main anti-graft agency and hounding Nuhu Ribadu, its former head, officials within the unit have warned.
"The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, say that the new leadership of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has removed dozens of senior investigators from cases against seven former state governors charged last year with looting public funds.
"'The view is that of a total takeover of the levers of control by the people who are supposed to be on trial,' said one EFCC official.
"Mr Ribadu, who led the EFCC after its establishment in 2003 under Olusegun Obasanjo, the former president, is regarded at home as the first Nigerian to have struck fear into a political class estimated to have stolen billions of dollars of public funds accrued mainly from the country’s oil wealth.
"Abroad he is respected for having led an unprecedented campaign to prosecute theft of government money and for collaborating with foreign police forces to curtail the e-mail scams and fraud for which Nigeria had become infamous.
"But the softly-spoken police officer, whose modest lifestyle contrasted with that of many of his targets, also attracted fierce criticism. A widespread perception that Mr Obasanjo was using him as a tool to persecute political opponents and exclude them from running at the polls cost Mr Ribadu some of his credibility.
"The EFCC is one of several institutions, promoted by the former government as the face of a new Nigeria, to have been shaken up since Umaru Yar’Adua became president in May last year..."
Another hint about the demotion of former Chief Executive of the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu comes in an article in Vanguard in Lagos. The article is titled, Ribadu - Why He Was Demoted.
Yinka Odumakin of the Pan Yoruba Soci-cultural organisation, Afenifere, is quoted in the article as saying, "we have other issues to take up with the Police Service Commission: We are alarmed that about 40 of the demoted officers, compared to nine from the North, come from the South-West zone, which means they are all Yoruba.
"We want to be convinced that this is not another continuation of geographical manipulations to ensure that a certain ethnic stock continues to take all the sensitive positions in the force now and in the future."
In other words, a Yoruba organization is alleging that the demotion of Ribadu was part of an "ethnic cleansing" of the EFCC by the government of northerner President Yar'Adua
See also:
- Rewarding Honesty
- Nigeria's Anti-corruuption campaign
Anti-corruption activity in Nigeria - Clarify and simplify
- Anti-corruption move in Nigeria
- In re: Anti-corruption move in Nigeria
- Groups Decry Ribadu's Replacement
- EFCC and the Challenges of Democratic Reforms in Nigeria by Nuhu Ribadu, February 2007
Labels: corruption, Nigeria, politics
posted by Ken Wedding @ 6:30 AM
1 Comments:
From an editorial in This Day.
Demoting Ribadu And Others
"How can anyone ever justify rewarding a brilliant performance with multiple demotions? This is the question that has confronted the Police Service Commission (PSC) since last Monday when it announced the demotion of former boss of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu and 139 other police officers... citing failure by the police authorities to route their promotions through it as the body statutorily charged with recruitment, appointment, promotion and discipline of police officers.
"On the face of it, the PSC action bore the imprimatur of due process and rule of law: what other thing can you do other than to cancel appointments made illegally?...
"[The] explanation is superficial, if not simplistic, while the circumstances surrounding the demotions, particularly Ribadu's, were more nuanced...
"Ribadu... had chalked up two promotions... [T]hey spanned the period that Ribadu, as the anti-corruption czar, revived the anti-corruption war in Nigeria and imbued it with its now accustomed urgency and seriousness, producing hundreds of convictions, recovering billions of naira in looted funds and sending clear signals to a sceptical world that Nigeria was ready to do something about its negative image as a haven of graft. He became a well-decorated officer as his diligence was recognised both at home and abroad...
"[M]ost Nigerians saw him as the right man for the job and the international community concurred with effusive praise for him. It was therefore understandable that Nigerians smelled a rat when he was asked to enrol for a course. Many voiced the opinion that he might have stepped on toes of powerful people associated with the new administration of President Umaru Yar' Adua...
"This can only send wrong signals to the world that, as a nation, we are only paying lip service to the fight against corruption. The government has shown amazing insensitivity to public opinion on the Ribadu issue. Worse, the shabby treatment being dished out to him is indecent. It is injurious to public morality and can only help the cause of sundry malefactors and those who think they are above the law if the impression is sustained that good deeds, such as Ribadu's, will eventually be punished..."
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