yesterday descended on former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC), Malam Nuhu Ribadu, describing him as an “ethically
challenged hypocrite.”
The former presidential candidate on the
platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) had in a lecture in Kaduna on
Saturday described President Goodluck Jonathan as a tyrant who presides over a
“sinking ship.”
A statement signed by presidential spokesman, Dr
Reuben Abati, described Ribadu’s stand as false, hypocritical self-serving.
Abati said: “We find it very sad and
utterly deplorable that Nuhu Ribadu has resorted to shameless wolf-crying, the
peddling of arrant falsehood and the denigration of the elected government of
his fatherland in furtherance of his selfish quest for continued national
political relevance after his wholesale rejection by Nigerian voters in 2011.
“It is very unfortunate indeed that the once
highly respected former EFCC Chairman has now taken to political prostitution
and developed a penchant for irresponsible and reckless utterances aimed at
improving the electoral fortunes of his new friends and “leader”, who he once
famously denounced as a crook who is “not fit to hold public office”.
“There can be no doubt that nothing else but
blind ambition for an office for which he is clearly unfit is driving Ribadu to
infer that an Administration led by a President who welcomed him back to the
country after his self-imposed exile, restored his rank in the Nigeria Police
to save him from the shame of demotion and converted his dismissal from service
to retirement has now become tyrannical and anti-people. We take special note
of his ingratitude.”
The statement continued: “If Nuhu Ribadu
wants to talk of tyranny then he should talk of the days when he orchestrated
the impeachment of governors with an illegitimate quorum of legislators who had
been threatened by the EFCC under his watch. It beats the imagination that Nuhu
Ribadu, a man who once presided over an EFCC which in 2007 compiled a list
of disqualified politicians aspiring for office without a court order or legal
backing now has the guts to accuse the man under whom Nigeria has had the most
credible elections in this Fourth Republic of being the leader of a
“sinking ship”. Can there be a greater tyranny than the tyranny of removing
governors via undemocratic means and barring legally entitled persons from
contesting elections?”
The Presidency faulted Ribadu’s call to Nigerian
youths to rise and save the country from Jonathan, saying it was hypocritical
to say that of an administration he recently served.
“Nothing else but misguided ambition could
have driven Ribadu to urge Nigerian youths to rise up and save the country from
an Administration which he willingly served recently, but which he now
duplicitously and insincerely claims is “imposing private interests on the
majority.”
Recalling Ribadu’s controversial days as an
anti- corruption czar, the statement noted: ” It is certainly the height
of hypocrisy for Ribadu who built his entire reputation as an anti-corruption
crusader by completely disregarding the rule of law and recklessly trampling on
the rights of perceived enemies of the government of the day, to now accuse an
administration that has consistently upheld the rule of law and respect for
fundamental human rights of being tyrannical.”
It continued: ” It is only a shameless man
that will turn around and accept to be the political lackey of a man he once
openly accused of corruption at various times between 2004 and 2007. Now that
he has been used and abused by the undemocratic overlords that reign over the
ACN and fearing that he may soon be dumped now that the vehicle is about to be
subsumed into the so called All Progressives Congress, Ribadu is
desperately seeking fresh relevance.
“Ribadu’s descent into a moral abyss since
leaving the exalted office of EFCC Chairman, his equally ethically-challenged
new friends and his willingness to vituperate against any person or institution
he perceives as a challenge to the fulfilment of his unattainable ambitions,
have clearly exposed him for what he truly is – a thoroughly unprincipled attention-seeker
whose entire career in the public service was built on bootlicking and doing
the bidding of the powers of the day without a care for legality which should
have been his primary concern as an officer of the law.
“President Jonathan and his Administration will
not be distracted from the diligent implementation of the agenda for national
transformation by the falsehoods and vituperations of Ribadu and his new
friends.
“Far from being tyrannical as Ribadu falsely
alleged in Kaduna, President Jonathan will, as he has consistently done since
assuming office, continue to strengthen institutions of democratic governance
in Nigeria, uphold the fundamental human rights of all Nigerians including the
youth, and protect their right to elect leaders in free, fair and credible
elections.”
Source: Compass
