Tony Momoh
11 January 2009
column
THE dismissal of Ribadu from the Police Force is no doubt a fall, and it will remain the fall of an unsung hero by what he does with it or about it. Two ways of addressing the issue have emerged. One, I read in the papers that 40 legal practitioners have signed on to defend him, including our own dear Gani Fawehinmi who is recuperating from lung cancer in the UK!
Two, a national Sunday paper has published that there are moves towards withdrawing the letter of dismissal and recalling Ribadu to the Force. Neither of these moves, I say, will grow Ribadu. Let us take the court case. Many lawyers offering to help out now are doing so in solidarity with the subject of their sympathy, but by the time the chips are down, the number going to court will be reduced until the news value of the matter is lost and you can hardly see any mention of the drama that announced the event. At the end of the day, which may be at the final port of call, the Supreme Court, the case is won or lost. Then what?
Where do we go from there? Ok, the law is enriched. But where does that leave Ribadu? That is the point I insist we must address. Was I not the one who wrote Siberia on the Plateau on January 6, 2008? See pages 461 - 465 of Vol. 2 of Democracy Watch, A Monitor's Diary. In that piece, I told people who claimed that Ribadu, being a policeman, could be removed by the Inspector General of Police even while at post at the EFCC: "... the point is that EFCC is a product of the law and this government has staked its whole being on due process in doing things.
The Inspector-General of Police is the boss of every policeman, but he is not the boss of Nuhu Ribadu in his capacity as chairman of the EFCC. The EFCC boss is appointed by the President on the approval of the Senate, and can be removed only by the President. But the removal must accord with due process. That is that he must have been found to be unable to perform the functions of the office because of some infirmity; or that he was found guilty of misconduct; or that his removal is in the public or commission's interest.
There is no public interest in an action that seems to protect those who emptied our treasuries and are being called upon to dance to the music. The success of EFCC today, like the success of NAFDAC and some other agencies, is a result of the focus and drive and dedication and determination of the one at the head. There may be many more focused and dedicated than Nuhu Ribadu..., among many in the polity, but the truth is that moving them out when their services are more crucial and their tenure is still on, may undermine what we all set out, in good faith and in the public interest, to achieve. Let's leave Ribadu at post, so that he can start work on those who yesterday could not be touched".
Ribadu was assured that his post would still be there while away in Kuru. Along the line, however, the post was filled and that meant he was back at base in the Police Force, under the direct control of the Police Act, regulations and orders, and his superior officers headed by the inspector-general of police. If I were Ribadu, I would have quit the Force when I was asked to go to Kuru, knowing what has happened to many of the more than 1,500 products of that our version of the Imperial College. But he remained there, and seemed to have wanted to relate to the Police on his own terms! And this is what I mean when I say there must be something he wanted to achieve.
And as I cannot see it in the case in court, I wonder what it will be in the second intervention reported in the papers last weekend - that former President Olusegun Obasanjo has asked for the restoration of Ribadu to the Police Force! I doubt that our former President would have done such a thing, knowing the full implications such a step would have for discipline. What of the other 139 that were reduced in rank? Of course what is good for the goose must also be good for the gander. They must share in the outcome of that intervention if there was such a move!
Let me come to my promise last week that the fall of Ribadu may well be a stepping stone to the rise of Ribadu. His strength is the passion with which he pours forth his anger against the corrupt. My take is that if he wants to belong on the side of history, he must prove that his stubborn streak was not born of hiding under the canopy of office to assert a boldness he does not harbour within his being. He must show that come rain come shine, he is a man who, as I have described Comrade Governor Oshiomhole of Edo State, is allergic to injustice. He does not need any credentials to make the point that he is one man that Nigerians will miss in the corruption battle lines.
His past utterances show clearly that he has tonnes of material to work with; that what he must do is to be bold enough to stand on the other side of the fence and declare war against those human vampires in our midst, some of whom he tackled when he was in office. I will challenge him in a minute. But let us look back briefly to the times when people had a choice to be in one place and decided to be in another, and thereby got written on a page of the history of the great.
Take, at random, Awolowo, Balarabe Musa, Abiola,Tofa, Col Umar, Babatope, Enahoro, Atiku and Buhari. They had choices to make and made those choices that grew them or reduced their growth. Chief Awolowo refused to take part in a unity government at independence and helped to grow democracy in this country. He was accused of planning to topple the government and was thrown into jail. He left jail, handled our economy during the civil war; and it is on record that we did not borrow a kobo to prosecute that 30-month war.
Balarabe Musa was the governor of Kaduna State who was impeached by the House of Assembly. He has never wavered in leading the opposition to tell governments where they have gone wrong. Abiola and Tofa stood as presidential candidates of the SDP and NRC respectively during the 1993 election which was annulled by the military government of Ibrahim Babangida. My friend, Godwin Daboh, told me that Tofa won that election and that there were figures to prove it.
But Tofa did not fight anyone to establish any claim to victory. Abiola fought, was arrested
and imprisoned and later died. He remains today in our books as the civilian who proved that a coup d'etat that is resisted never succeeds in Nigeria, whether military or civilian. The events that climaxed the coming of Obasanjo in 1999 were directly the outcome of democracy fighters under the umbrella of NADECO. Col Umar was a promising young officer of the Nigerian Army. He resigned his commission on principle because of the handling of the annulled presidential election of 1993. He retains a page today in the books of those who struggled to grow our democracy. Ebenezer Babatope has, since he had a stint with Abacha, been struggling to return to the club of fighters for order and discipline. I do not know how many young ones today will wear the badge of Ebino Topsy as many did before the 1993 presidential elections were compromised by many sons from the House of Oduduwa.
Tony Enahoro has remained a national institution, but he almost dented his image when he was being lured to join the PDP. I flew to Benin City to warn him of the danger he was being led into and wrote a piece on this page on June 11, 2000. In that piece, I told someone I met at Enahoro's Benin home that we would not risk his movement into the PDP because we wanted to live with the memories of one I described as "a guinea-pig of the Nigerian democratic experiment" (See page 91 of Vol. 1 of Democracy Watch, A Monitor's Diary).
Atiku Abubakar came forcefully into reckoning by fighting for his rights through due process when Obasanjo wanted to do away with him as Vice President. To date, he is on the side of history, but this status is being dimmed by recent calls for him to return to the PDP. If he does, he would have lost all he gained in the struggle to entrench democracy in the polity. Muhammadu Buhari's discipline and principles have shown him as the most credible asset the democracy movement has today.
He has enriched the electoral laws more than any other in Nigerian history, and his dogged refusal to be part of a unity government has alienated him from the leadership of the ANPP, but he has not been the loser. It is a hard decision to, as they say, give your life to Christ, because there are many things you have been doing in life that you must now forgo. So, being on the other side of the fence is what will make Ribadu and give him a page in history. He may, by that choice, receive the butts of the gun of the police, even get killed fighting the cause he believes in.
To return to the police he has bluffed will make him one of the most uncomfortable men who ever passed through those portals. He will earn his pay but no one will give him a job. Yes, he may be asked to come back there to reform the Force, but that won't happen today. So equipped is he to fight the corruption war that he will not find it difficult to set up an outfit to do so, and have overwhelming support from those already in the trenches or be encouraged by those listed in the pages of the struggle as having been there.
Familiar names not already mentioned include Abraham Adesanya, Beko Ransome-Kuti, Alfred Rewane, Bagauda Kaltho, Kudirat Abiola, Bola Ige, Wole Soyinka, Gani Fawehinmi, Femi Falana, Dan Suleiman, John Odigie-Oyegun, Alani Akinrinade, Bola Tinubu, Rauf Aregbesola, Pat Utomi, Mrs Ayo Obe, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, Olisa Agbakoba, Frank Kokori, and Joe Okei-Odumakin. If he does not want the discomfort of the trenches, Ribadu can take up a job outside of these shores or look for a safe haven from where, through the well-known channels on the internet, haul missiles into this dirty and stinking place that is not ashamed to honour the corrupt.
One door has closed for Ribadu. Many others have opened. Going to court is okay if there is something to gain for posterity. Going back to the police will diminish him. The choice is clear, and that choice is not the comfort of a government office. But it is Ribadu who must make it, and be a hero or go down in history unsung.
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