December 27, 2007
The decision of the top echelons of the Police and Yar’ Adua administration to ease out Mr Nuhu Ribadu as the Chairperson of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is illegal and despicable to say the very least. It is illegal because the law establishing the EFCC is very clear and unambiguous. That law does not admit of an unrequested study leave or of any study leave for that matter. The Chairperson of the EFCC has a fixed tenure of four years. Of course he can be removed by the President if he suffers any infirmity of mind or body; if he misconducts himself; or if the President thinks it is in the interest of the public to remove him. There is no basis for asking the man to proceed on study leave for any duration under the Act. It is therefore simply mischievous to argue that since he was seconded from the Police his tenure can be tampered with at will.
If the President thinks that he can no longer tolerate the man he should muster the courage to simply say so and leave Nigerians to make up their minds about his obvious lack of seriousness on the war against corruption. Those arguing that Mr Ribadu is not dispensable miss the point completely. If he were indispensable his name would have been written in the EFCC law. The point is that it is illegal to interfere with a fixed tenure under the guise of granting a gratuitous and unsolicited study leave. Very soon if this clear nonsense is not reversed we would enter the era of asking Governors to proceed on study leave. Of course, that would be an absolute illegality just as in the case of Mr Ribadu.
I oppose this illegal study leave as i am convinced that it was contrived by the enemies of our people, led by the corrupt ex and serving public officials to truncate the war against corruption. It is a war against our people and it is very wicked of them to slap us in the face with the study leave contrivance. I will support all moves to challenge those who hatched this illegality. Nigerians must resist the cabal whose only profession is to loot and steal our resources. They will not get away with this infamy.
I congratulate President Yar’ Adua for showing his true colours now. He has now shown clearly that he is a friend of corrupt people and that he will do everything to protect them. I wish him goodluck. Henceforth he should spare us those sermons of his on anti-corruption; for a friend of corrupt people will find it difficult to convince reasonable people that he himself is clean. This government has lost any capacity to fight corruption with this terrible decision.
Mr Okiro should simply resign for lending the weight of his office to this obvious illegality. We will hold him personally responsible for any harm that may happen to Mr Ribadu at Kuru or elsewhere. For there is no doubt that the study leave will expose the man to needless harm which he has no time to plan for, more so as the study leave is imposed. For our people we have a long way to go. The war is not over yet over. Very soon many suspects will start getting all sorts of funning bails. I can assure them this victory of theirs will not last. This country can no longer be safe for corrupt people.
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