Ochereome Nnanna
1 December 2008
column
UP till now, the federal government has not come out with a full explanation of why it took the hatchet and went after former Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Chairman, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu.
What he is going through at the hands of state agents is not normal. Somebody somewhere up there must have decided to "show" him the meaning of power and impunity.
The "servant leader" is not a man of words. He is not given to explaining things. Some servant leader. And since he called his officers including those who speak for him and publicly bound them over in a secret oath, less and less explanation is coming out of Aso Villa over the many confusing signals we see all around us. As usual, we are left to figure it out for ourselves.
That is what I will do here. I have two questions I want to tackle over the Ribadu affair. One is, why do I think he is being subjected to this series of ordeals by the combined forces of the Police, office of the Attorney General of the Federation, the secret police (SSS) and the empire he once ruled, the EFCC? Second, what next do I think Ribadu should do?
I hope by taking up this Ribadu puzzle, I have not given you the impression of me as a person who drinks paracetamol to cure someone else's headache.
First of all, I do not think the problem Ribadu is facing has much to do with any of insinuations the public has been given, such as:
(a) his so-called Gestapo method of ruling EFCC's affairs and Commission's earlier power contest with the Attorney General of the Federation;
(b) he owns property in Dubai, London and Abuja;
(c) as a student of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) he visited the President in mufti rather than police uniform;
(d) he was too junior (after double demotion by the Police Service Commission) to graduate from NIPSS; blah, blah, blah. Rather, someone decided to trim Ribadu's wing and Ribadu is resisting. His resistance becomes more fuel for the fire. The more headstrong he becomes the more maddened they get and therefore the more avenues are exploited to "bring him to heel".
My mind tells me that President Umar Yar' Adua and Mallam Nuhu Ribadu could be locked in a game of nerves and will. It is not the kind of situation that develops between two individuals who have openly quarrelled.
That sort of situation is usually quickly dealt with and soon forgotten. It may be that Ribadu has somehow, either in words (you know he has a lot of those) or deed, demonstrated his low opinion of the president's ability to lead. Perhaps, Ribadu unconsciously thrust himself into a Yar Adua raw nerve, an affront the president might have quietly filed away for attention at a later date.
I have reason to bring this up, and I have an example of a time in the history of our country when a similar thing happened and eventually ended in tragedy.
A few weeks to Yar' Adua's assumption of power, at a time when power supply was at an all-time low in Nigeria, former President Obasanjo set up an in-house task force and appointed Mallam Nasir el Rufai as Chairman.
The committee later announced that it had audited and recovered some lost megawatts of electricity and thus raised the number from 1,800 to 3,200 megawatts. During a speech at the launch of a book on el Rufai's achievements media reports quoted Ribadu as saying that "we" decided that el Rufai was the only who can handle the Power Steel sector.
The impression was clearly given that Obasanjo and his "boys" had appointed a cabinet for the in-coming Yar' Adua regime. After all, they appointed him and selected a vice presidential running mate for him.
It was actually Mallam el Rufai who gave the first hint, towards the end of 2006, that a decision as to who would succeed Obasanjo had been made. He said specifically that the person would be a governor and not more than 55 years old.
Between Ribadu and el Rufai, the impression being made public was that they were part of birthing a government in which they, along with Obasanjo, would be both kingmakers and the powers behind the throne.
This helped create in the mind of the public the speculation that Yar' Adua was going to be a stooge for Obasanjo and "pets". Psychologists will tell you that people who are taciturn, or not very articulate, or lack charisma and are generally seen as dark horses", when placed in positions of power, usually go out of their ways to illustrate their capacity to use power.
This was the picture painted of Joseph Vissarionovich Djugashvili (popularly known as Stalin) in the days of the Soviet rise to world super-power status. After the death of the highly magnetic philosopher and founder of the Bolshevik Revolution, Vladimir Lenin, there was a tendency for other bright stars who contended for succession to look down on the man that eventually grabbed the plum post.
Stalin responded with such extreme measures in entrenching himself in power that he went down as one of the most murderous leaders in history, and a lot of the people he eliminated were intellectuals (of which he was said not to be).
Stalin became so powerful that when he died it reportedly took days before his transition could be formally announced to ensure that no mistake was made due to the known possible consequences of such a mistake being made.
Back home here in Nigeria, we had a head of state who was often compared to Stalin and whose methods compare to a large extent with that of our incumbent president. His name was General Sani Abacha.
Magazines openly described Abacha as a "dunce" who did not pass Staff College. Later on when his health problem became public knowledge, it became one more reason for his opponents within and outside the armed forces, to deride his executive capacity and "test" his will. Out of these many individuals and groups, one man stood out. His name was retired Major General Shehu Musa Yar' Adua, the elder brother of the incumbent president.
Yar' Adua wanted to be president of Nigeria. He founded a political movement and used it to run a race in which he had very bright chances of success. But he was frustrated at each point by General Ibrahim Babangida, who was reportedly eyeing self-succession.
When Babangida annulled the June 12 1993 presidential election won by Chief Moshood Abiola and enthroned an interim government, Yar' Adua saw a chance to run for president again. And for this he and his group abandoned the struggle to revalidate Abiola's mandate.
When Abacha pushed the interim government out of office and took over, he promised a quick transition to civil rule in which the military would not be a part.
SHEHU decided to promote the constitutional conference that Abacha called and even contested an election to attend the conference.
Little did he know that Abacha had other ideas: the idea of using the transition programme to entrench himself in power so that he could transform into a civilian president. Yar' Adua was so effective among the conference delegates that he succeeded in convincing them to set the January 1, 1996 exit date for the military.
It was from this point that Abacha was no longer able to restrain himself to finally put the Yar' Adua challenge to his ambitions to rest for good.
Abacha became so fierce that when he died on June 8 1998, a former victim and opponent, Chief Bola Ige listed what he termed "the advantages of Abacha's death".
The summary of this discourse is that Ribadu will not win the war of nerves between him and the authorities under President Yar' Adua.
The more he puts up fights the deeper he will get into the mess. The best thing for him to do now is resign his commission in the Police Force.
He has no place there anymore just as he has none in the EFCC. He should not wait to be sacked. It is more honourable to resign than to be sacked with ignominy.
As for the future, I think it remains bright for Ribadu, but that will not be in government ranks, at least not for some time.
These travails could be the heat that enables iron to be reshaped for greater purposes. Ribadu is a lawyer. He is an international award winning anti-corruption czar. He is known all over the world and popular among many Nigerians. He is a very articulate speaker.
There are not many people in Ribadu's age bracket with such powerful credentials. If no serious case of corruption is established against him and he channels these endowments properly, the sky is his limit.
One day he will come to laugh at the joke of fighting to remain in government employment by all means. One day, he can still get a chance to fight corruption in his own terms.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Vanguard. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
