Excerpts:
As the acting director-general of NIPSS, you must be passing through difficult times considering the current issue involving Nuhu Ribadu and so on. Tell us what is it like the stress and joy of that office?
Well, you know it is stressful particularly in terms of the issues that are currently in the public domain concerning the national institute. One, the question concerning Ribadu and the issues that bordered on the impropriety on the part of the management, which has also been in the public domain and the issue concerning the camera that was stolen in China. I mean, the issue involving Briggs, one of the course 30 participants. Fourthly, the issue concerning the day-to-day administration is one teething problem especially when you have a substantive director-general, you make recommendation to him and the consequences are his to bear.
As the acting DG, all the decisions I make, I bear the responsibility. That is the difficult aspect. But, I think the joy of it is to be in a position also to give people what is due to them and to dictate the tone of the organization in the sense that you want efficiency in the system, you get it. You want sanity you get it. You want fairness and equity you get it. You want to reward people if you insist on it. You get it. These, to me, are what I find enjoyable but the fact is that when the decisions fail, it is your own responsibility or when there are consequences that are not intended, these are difficulties.
This week has been one of the busiest of all as it is the security week. You had to sit with the top hierarchy of the military, security agencies and the para-military, you do that from morning to evening, and it is quite tasking both mentally and physically. It is quite a difficult task and you have to make everybody happy, the visitors, participants and staff.
The other issues concerning Ribadu and Briggs are issues that are quite sensitive. I do not know if you have specific questions, you want me to answer in that regard.
Looking at Ribadu, he was part of those that came to NIPSS based on the recommendation of the Inspector-General of Police and he was inaugurated alongside 62 others by the Vice President. Few months to his rounding off the course, the Police Service Commission demoted more than 139 officers, Ribadu was demoted from the rank of AIG to that of deputy-commissioner of police and by the requirements in NIPSS, such positions in the police do not qualify someone to be a participant, what will you say on this?
Well, let me say this, the Police Service Commission has its statutory functions. I do not want to challenge those but I want to say that Ribadu was promoted on the authority of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, when the Police Service Commission was not in place. For me, the president at that time acted constitutionally, legally and he must have had reasons for whatever happened by way of promotion. In my opinion, if the Police Service Commission, which is also an instrument of the president, comes in and dispute what the president has done, then there is something wrong. Two, even if procedurally, the promotions are considered by the Police Service Commission as having been done irregularly, in my opinion, this is a very personal opinion, the Police Service Commission should have drawn a line and say okay, this has been done, no more and start to do the right thing from now.
However, to go back retrospectively and demote people in this way, they will allow people to think that there is something behind this.
Now, for NIPSS, the IGP sent a list of people to the VP recommending them as participants in Course 30 of the national institute. And, the first on that list was the AIG, Nuhu Ribadu. He met at that time all the conditions including being over 40, having a first degree, being above the post of commissioner of police and other criteria, so we accepted him. We registered him and he is on course.
I still stand today; nobody has informed the national institute or me that Nuhu Ribadu has been demoted. And, even at that, we have our own rules, which say that in place of retirement, and this demotion is similar to retirement because this is a personnel function, we cannot withdraw the person. And, it is the responsibility of the sponsor, in this case, the Police, who are duty bound to carry on bearing the responsibility of Nuhu Ribadu despite his demotion. And, for us, even if we are informed formally by the Police or the Police Service Commission and that this thing does not fall under the conditions and terms in which we will withdraw someone, like ill-health, incapacity to carry on with the programmes in terms of intellectual and academic ability, of course misconduct, I really do not think the institute or its board would be in the position to say they would withdraw Ribadu.
In my opinion, Ribadu would have to complete his course unless another DG would come and revert it. You know, I am just acting and I believe another DG would come and I would revert to my position as the secretary, but for now that I am acting DG, this is my opinion and I think Ribadu will continue with the programme and we do not intend to withdraw him.
The IGP was quoted as saying that they don’t have the right either to initiate the recall of Ribadu despite his demotion but it was you instead that is supposed to initiate the removal of Ribadu based on the requirements meant for the participants.
Well, I have said it and our criteria are clear; our criteria are that one, I have not been informed and even if I am informed, I will apply the rules and the rules are that there must be a case of misconduct, ill health or inability to cope with the course.
Now, mark you, I said it is a personnel function. Even if he is retired, he will still continue and we are saying that by interpretation, if he is demoted, he will still continue because I don’t see how we can interpret it any other way but for me, I think it is something that probably may face the new DG or the new board if it is in place and that is if the police want to bring it up but I doubt if they will bring it up since the IGP has pronounced what he pronounced, but if it is in NIPSS, I can assure you that we will not initiate his removal.
You are talking about one being intellectually deficient as one of the criteria of one being removed from school, as acting DG, NIPSS, how is your assessment of Ribadu in the course generally?
We are about writing the mid-term report but from my interaction with him as a person, I think he is highly intelligent, capable and therefore, I don’t expect him to fall short of the intellectual requirement of the national institute. I don’t think so. I think he is quite able to cope with the course and I am sure the mid-term report will bear this opinion of mine out.
Suppose the office of the vice-president, which is the supervisory body of NIPSS, now sends an official letter for all participants who have deficiency in one area or the other especially on Ribadu, who has been demoted, would you chase him out of the course?
It depends, if they send a letter to say deficiency, the areas of deficiency are clear: they do not include such fact that he was demoted. That is not included and mark you, I have had cause to tell people that the cut-off point for federal civil servants are directors. But, we had to accept deputy-directors. So the cut-off point is just one criterion among others. He is commissioner of police and he is the deputy-commissioner of police, logically therefore, if you condone a deputy-director in the civil service, why won’t you condone a deputy-commissioner of police from the police force?
So, this logic speaks for itself and you people can draw your conclusions and I do not think that the vice-president, given the sensitivity of the issue, would take Ribadu out of the course.
Recently, the institute was in the news concerning harbouring thieves especially one of the course participants, (names withheld) who was said to have stolen a camera belonging to another participant in far away China, I don’t know what has been done in respect to this case?
Well, the national institute management was confronted with this issue when the former DG, Prof. Akindeyeni was still on seat. He took certain steps and I can just enumerate them for you. When the newspapers came out with the story, he requested that the study group director who was in charge of the group involved and the person involved in China to report. He made the report and it was sent to me with a minute from the DG then, constituting an investigative panel. That investigative panel, I convened as secretary of the institute. It carried out its job, made its report and submitted it to the DG who in turn asked me as the Chairman of the Appointment, Promotion and Disciplinary Committee, to examine the report if it followed due process.
Prior to that, I had been called by him to query the person involved and we had seen his response which was not satisfactory. We followed the rules when we are not satisfied to formally interdict the person which we did and on the receipt of the report of the investigative panel, I convened the Appointment, Promotion and Disciplinary Committee of NIPSS of which I am the chairman, I went through some of their findings, corrected some of their mistakes, made our own recommendations back to the DG who now convened the management to look at it and management upheld all our recommendations.
And, our recommendations were based on quite a number of things: one, we said given the international dimension of the incident and the impact on Nigeria’s image, the effect on the citizens, the institute, the participants and the alumni of the national institute, we have been said to be training thieves, these are some of the effects we took into consideration. So, we recommended that the person should be withdrawn from the set 30 Course. Two, that he be suspended after being found guilty but that is where our powers ended.
In the absence of the board, I would have asked that his appointment be terminated but since the board was not there, I recommended that this be referred to the vice-president as the supervisory authority to approve the termination so that the person can be removed from our midst. In addition to the crime in China, he had nine cases of misdemeanor in his file including two last warnings and two unprocessed queries in which, if we are to process them, he would have been dismissed right away because if you already have a last warning and you have a query coming after that, the rules are clear: you are to go. So, he was a clear case of somebody who was to go.
Finally, I recommended that the case be referred to the Attorney-General of the Federation, because of the criminal aspect of it. Now, these were the things and when management approved my recommendation as the chairman of that committee, I went ahead and implemented the first one. That is, one, withdraw him from the course. Two, suspend him with no pay after he answered the query which was not satisfactory. Then we sent our reports including the copies of our letter, withdrawing him from the course and suspending him from the job to the office of the vice president. A week later, we received a letter from the office of the vice president saying we should revert and go back to the status-quo and the reason being that we were not competent to pronounce him a thief as it was only a court of law that could do that.
Well, we said fine. He (VP) is the superior authority. So, we complied. But, we indicated in our reply that having complied, we expected him to refer the matter to the Attorney-General of the Federation to determine what to do. And, as I am speaking, we were invited to one meeting with the VP in which he took this position and he said he was going to refer the matter to the Attorney-General for advice.
We have heard nothing from that since then. So, as I am speaking, the person who admitted he took the camera, admitted but refused to return it until it was cleared that he could have been jailed in China then. He now admitted and returned it and by the way, if the Chinese did not have the facility of CCTV to have pin-pointed when he picked the camera, that camera would still not have been returned. So, that is the position we are having now and we are waiting.
So your hands are tied?
Would you say no? I have turned everything back to the VP. It is left for him, it is not my hands that are tied, my hands are not tied, I did my best, that is it.
Let us go back to the issue of the institute generally. Is this one of the so many cases that you have been having in the institute or is it one that you are just experiencing, the issue of theft among participants?
Well, I have been reliably told that the same person had stolen money from fellow participants, two participants have told me that, including Ribadu himself. He was said to have stolen $500 from Ribadu and N100,000 from one of the participants who is currently the Head of Service in Benue State. So, apart from that, I do not have any but I was told and I can say authoritatively, I was told by the persons themselves.
So what do you do?
We have a clear case of a thief in our midst.
I am a bit confused here, the institute, you have some little autonomy but your hands seem to be tied in terms of implementation or what is the autonomy of the institute like in the academic aspect?
The institute exercises a lot of autonomy. I can tell you, for instance, that the institute can determine without anybody’s interference whether you pass or you fail. Two, it can determine whether you have the credentials to come or not especially at the beginning but this event has kind of brought the question of whether the political authority can ignore the statutory responsibility of an organisation like NIPSS for certain other considerations that are best known to them. But as it is at the moment, it is clearly a problem of whether NIPSS has any authority at all because what NIPSS did was in compliance with the rules of the national institute and its competency as regards staff and academic matters.
And, indeed we are careful to stop where our authority limits us because we do not have the power to discipline beyond a certain limit. Staff of the calibre of level 14 and 16 are the highest in NIPSS, it is the board that disciplines them and when it is not there, it is a matter for the VP and that is why we were careful to one, interdict him; two, suspend him, and stop there. We do not have the power to terminate him, so we did not. So, even the power now to suspend him and to remove him from the course, which we nominated him for, is being put into question.
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