nuzo:

Is every nigerian this boastful? Or is it a disturbing behavior they learnt from their politicians; i will build this, i will be build that. Their advert will be on air till they vacate office without actually building anything?

As for ife-eco06, i know you can deliver, but go and get your work done before coming here to advertise it. You don't get to see Okay Ndibe or Abati making noise about their work before its done.
Waiting for your piece.

The trial of Nuhu Ribadu continues
By Azubuike Ishiekwene
Published: Tuesday, 25 Nov 2008
While I was writing the book, The trial of Nuhu Ribadu, settling for a title was a wrestle. Strictly speaking, Ribadu was not standing trial at the time. In a sense therefore, the title sounded a bit exaggerated.

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former Chairman of the EFCC, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu

The Inspector General of Police, Mike Okiro, had just announced at his famous “routine” press conference that Ribadu needed to go back to school, for his own good. He said that the former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission had not only been promoted out of turn, he had also skipped a compulsory officers’ course, which was a requirement for his post.

Now, for all that is ripe and fit to pluck, sending a man back to school can hardly be said to be a trial of any sort. Right, except that in what is proving to be Nigeria’s longest-running absurdity, the instigators can’t seem to help themselves from putting every foot wrong. From the first day when Okiro set aside police rules and the EFCC Act to recommend Ribadu for a course, and obtained an approval from President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, who himself had no basis in any known law for granting the approval, it’s been one bumbling step after the other. Agents of Yar’Adua’s government, apparently acting with the full knowledge of the president, while trying hard not to appear so, have proceeded with an uncommon zeal to pull Ribadu down, and if possible, destroy him, warts and all.

It’s a trial that has proved petty in its objective and laughable in its incompetence. They demoted Ribadu from AIG to DCP, but in an attempt to do him in ensnared four innocent police commissioners in the Presidency, and a dead police officer, Haz Iwendi, at whose graveside Okiro had earlier paid a profound tribute. At the EFCC, Ribadu’s former duty post, there has been no let up in the smear campaign directed at him. Farida Waziri’s men have ransacked his home and office and launched a witch hunt against all those perceived to be close to him. Ibrahim Magu, the EFCC operative responsible for investigating many of the high profile corruption cases under Ribadu, is in his third month of suspension after spending three weeks in detention, without trial. They won’t let Magu off the hook unless he agrees to spin the records to hang Ribadu.

It’s almost one year now since Waziri took over, yet the public is in the dark about any case, of all the pending cases, that has been followed through to a conviction. While Ribadu was in school at Kuru, he probably received more letters from Waziri than all the porters at the Institute had seen in a long time. The letters, asking for the most mundane things, from who moved files to who moved the cheese, were enough to keep Ribadu busy for the period of his one-year sojourn in Kuru.

The absurdity took a new twist last weekend when the government – the same government that insisted that Ribadu must return to school for his own good– frustrated his graduation at the National Institute. Before Saturday, Okiro had sent a signal to the Institute requesting that Ribadu be brought to him on Tuesday (today). But Okiro and his paymasters could not wait. They saw to it that Ribadu was removed from the venue of the ceremonies in a futile attempt to raise doubts about whether or not he had actually completed the programme.

Saturday’s show of shame was the climax of skirmishes between Ribadu on the one hand, and Okiro, Waziri and Company on the other. What do these fellows hope to achieve? What do they want? We have been told that Ribadu’s tenure as EFCC chairman was a disaster for due process and the rule of law; that former President Olusegun Obasanjo used him to fight his dirty political wars; and that the war on corruption under Obasanjo was too selective to make any sense. Perhaps there is some truth in this. Loquacious and sometimes abrasive in his style, Ribadu sometimes gives the impression that he would not let the facts get in the way of nailing a suspect or that he was too blind to see cases of corruption where those involved were serviceable to Obasanjo.

Apart from this weakness in style for which I criticised him before and still do now, there were institutional problems with the EFCC, ranging from the constitution of the board (out of the 22 members of the board, only five are non-government appointees) to the rather omnibus powers given to the agency in managing and disposing assets belonging to suspects. Yet, those who want Ribadu’s head on a platter are not interested in righting the institutional wrongs to make the agency more effective or in giving him any credit for his achievements. As at December when he was sidelined, the EFCC had prosecuted over 400 cases and obtained over 120 convictions, including the conviction of some of the biggest fraudsters in the $242m case that led to the collapse of the Brazilian bank.

It is instructive that none of the convicts who have accused the EFCC of selective justice has claimed wrongful conviction. It was during Ribadu’s tenure that the Paris-based watchdog, Financial Task Force, removed Nigeria from its blacklist and opened an inflow of capital that has strengthened the financial muscle of a number of banks and private businesses. The country’s improved ranking on Transparency International’s index is also largely attributable to the foundation laid on Ribadu’s watch at the EFCC.

But Okiro, Waziri and Company are unlikely to be impressed. They work for the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Michael Aondoakaa, who reportedly vowed from his first day in office to “clip Ribadu’s wings.” He appears to have succeeded now, but would obviously not stop until he has crushed Ribadu’s wings. That is the only thing that will bring true joy to the Iboris, the Sarakis, the Baloguns and the Babangidas – the untouchable godfathers of Aondoakaa – whom Ribadu dared to call to account.

We don’t know what is next. Yesterday, a statement from the Vice President’s office authorised the release of Ribadu’s certificate and promised an investigation into the nonsense at Kuru on Saturday. But I guess everyone knows that Yar’Adua’s government worships at the altar of Janus, the legendary double-faced Roman god. For a president who spends more time in bed than on the presidential seat, there’s no telling what’s next on the cards. Never was a government so thoroughly at the disposal of vested interests than this one. Anyone in doubt should read Sonala Olumhense’s article, titled, Nigeria surrounded, published in The Guardian on Sunday.

It’s not Ribadu that is on trial – Nigeria is on trial; and by the way, that should have been the title of my book.

http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art20081125102612

ife-eco-06:

Read this with a mixture of loud laugh and anger , but I'm used to NL, so I hardly get annoyed by NL comments. The boldened part made me LOL, and the italicised annoyed me. Anyway, you are free to say anything about me.
I didn't have any boastful intent in my putting up the thread. In fact if I had known a thread as https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-199001.0.html existed, I woudn't have started this thread in the first place. I had started this thread before seeing that one.
kajiko!!!

tharma:

Plagiarism. U are wasting ur time, a lot have bn written about it. Newspaper articles, books, everyday it is the samething. Perharps that is why Nigeria is not devoloping. People just like to copy, and copy and copy the same thing. Nothing is new. Put ur act together and thing of something. Why don't u have ur own ideas.