RIBADU V THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: THROWING AWAY THE BABY WITH THE BATHWATER
by Dotun Oyeniyi


What a country! A country that is so notorious for humiliating the righteous and glorifying the scoundrels. That is exactly what Nigeria does best. Be it known to all that those who love Nigeria, wholeheartedly and serve her honestly, faithfully and with all their strengths, behold one of three types of reward await them: end up in the prison; or in the grave; or a combination of both in the order of a brief passage through prison into a final destination – grave.

If you think that this assertion is just some hyperbolic fantasy of an enraged writer, then just cast a cursory look at Nigeria’s political history since independence with a view to discovering the innocent victims of State-sponsored terrorism and oppression.

Obafemi Awolowo – imprisoned; Murtala Muhammed – murdered; Moshood Abiola – imprisoned, then ´murdered´; Dele Giwa – murdered; Gani Fawehinmi – imprisoned several times over; Wole Soyinka – imprisoned; Kudirat Abiola – murdered; Alfred Rewane – murdered; Ken Saro Wiwa – imprisoned, then ‘murdered’; Fela Anikulapo kuti – imprisoned and his properties destroyed; Bola Ige – murdered; Dora Akinyuli attempt on her life; Abraham Adesanya – attempt on his life.

These are some of Nigeria’s true patriots whose only misdeed was to be borne in a land where good deeds are detested like a plague by a leadership class who is an immense beneficiary of and whose survival is intrenchantly conjoined with venalities. That leadership class, powerful, well connected, wealthy, callous, murderous and ruthless, is always ready and willing to mash, emasculate and smother anyone that stands as a clog in their wheel of impropriety, out of office if he had one and then out of life, with impunity and without any remorse.

A new addition to that long list of terrorised compatriots is being systematically written by this leadership class whose oppressive tentacles reach all parts of Nigeria and it will take concerted efforts of all of us, by crying a deafening havoc at their latest exploits, to stop this callous machination being intricately woven around Nuhu Ribadu. It goes without saying that the former anti corruption warrior is presently lurking precariously between the prison gate and the grave’s orifice, both of which were flung open and deeply dug respectively by the Nigerian government.

Yes, the Nigerian government, personified by President Musa Yar'Adua, his Justice Minister, Aondoakaa and the police IG, Mr Okiro, is the architect and mastermind of the present travails of Ribadu. The handwriting is too legibly written on the wall for anyone to be fooled. Forget the rushed claim of innocence by the Federal Government, following the barbaric treatment of Ribadu at the NIPSS graduation ground. If truly, the Federal government is not privy to that plot, and following her distancing of self from the act; will Mr Okiro and those faceless characters behind the veil of the Police Service Commission have the shameless audacity to continue, sub judicially, to harass Ribadu? If the answer to that question is yes, then with due respect to His Excellency, Alhaji Musa Yar´Adua, is not fit to be President. It is indicative that he is only in government but not in power, not at all. Or what manner of president will fold his hands and look the other way while the police authorities take up arms against a man who virtually single-handedly removed the unpleasant tag of world most corrupt country from Nigeria’s neck?

I sincerely find nothing more laughable and hilarious than the charge of indiscipline brought against Nuhu Ribadu by the police authority.´ What qualifies the Nigerian police high command to talk about discipline? If the Nigerian police is disciplined, would it not know that when a case is before a court, all parties must maintain the status quo until determined either way by the court? Hence, Ribadu remains a substantive AIG until the court pronounced him otherwise. If the Nigerian Police is disciplined, would his men treat their IG with so much flagrant contempt that they continued to set up checkpoints contrary to his order until he virtually had to get out of his car and chase them away from the illegal checkpoint into the bush on Lagos – Ibadan expressway? If the police is truly disciplined, would its men be using logs of timber, disused tyres, heavy stones and anything at all to set up their checkpoints as if we are in a war zone? If the Nigerian police is half as disciplined as it pretends to be, will it be unable to properly train its men on the methods of carrying rifles in a professional manner? In the entire civilised world, and even in India, as shown by the response of the Indian police to the recent terrorist attack, policemen carrying rifles normally strap them around their bodies, ostensibly to make it difficult for them to be dispossessed of the rifles. Not so with our own ‘disciplined’ policemen, who carry rifles carelessly as if they were some walking sticks, sometimes turning them into a makeshift chairs with the nozzle pressed against the ground while the officer rest his body on the butt. Would a disciplined police throw Tafa Balogun out of a moving car like a bag of cement while the former police boss was still being tried? No way, the Nigerian police authority lack the tiniest qualifications to enable it talk about discipline.

Let no one be in doubt that the well coordinated assault on Ribadu transcends the issue of getting promotion without due process. The real issues are those of envy and vengeance. Envy by those contemporaries of Ribadu who could not stomach his achievements at the EFCC and thus wanted him brought down at all costs. Envy also by his seniors, including the IG perhaps, who see Ribadu’s excellence, popularity, achievements, reputation as an incorruptible officer, unusual dedication and mission as a threat to their own reputations and offices. There is also a mission of vengeance from those powerful men of yesterday who have been crushed by the giant wheels of Ribadu’s anti corruption rollercoaster. Those men who lost their offices and millions in foreign currencies and billions in naira will not just sweep everything under the carpet with equanimity like that. They will surely fight back, aiming to strike Ribadu with a killer blow and part of that fight is what we are presently witnessing.

However, the killer blow is not just for Ribadu, it is for Nigeria as a nation, it shows that like a leopard, Nigeria hasn’t changed a single of her spots of corruption; it shows that Nigeria is a repelling environment for the forthright and a receptive one for the dubious. The federal government is doing the most stupid thing any government could do to her honest servant, especially when such honest servants are in short supply – throwing away the baby with the bathwater.

No doubt, Ribadu is one of the finest officers the Nigerian police have ever produced. It remains both mysterious and incredible to me that that decadent force whose personnel from the anonymous recruit from the remotest corner in Nigeria all the way through to the shot-callers at Louis Edet House in Abuja are mostly corrupt can produce a man of Ribadu’s integrity.

Go to the Scotland Yard´s office in England and the FBI´s office in the United States and mention the names Ribadu, Waziri, Onovo and Okiro. What you will certainly hear is ´we know who Ribadu is but who the hell are Waziri, Onovo and Okiro? ´ That is the difference between the lasting and the temporary; between class and rank; between substance and shadow, between service and office; between making millions of achievements in office and making millions of naira in it; between being a principled person and being just principal of persons and between being the inspector General of the people and the Inspector General of the police. Ribadu is the quintessential embodiment of the former while most of other high ranking police officers represent the latter.

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