Chief James Onanefe Ibori has denounced as horrible, revolting, nasty and totally false, the devilish claim made by Mr. Nuhu Ribadu in several newspapers and on-line publications of Monday 7th December 2015.
In a statement released
by Chief Ibori’s Media office and signed by Mr. Tony Eluemunor, Chief Ibori’s
Media Assistant, Ibori’s first reaction was to once again overlook the wild
claim as Ribadu appears to be back at his game. As the Senate and some security
agencies appear to be asking questions about some unwholesome events at the
EFCC, including the mismanagement and criminal diversion of funds from the sale
of confiscated properties into personal pockets, Ribadu may have a need to
attempt to burnish his fading image, fearing the investigations may ask
questions about events during his tenure. But he should be told that lying,
against even an enemy, just to gain some unearned applause and perhaps fence
off some approaching investigation and image disaster, must have a limit.
Ribadu claimed in the
news reports: “Ibori approached me with $15million to stop his investigation. I
called my people because the money was in big bags, which two people could not
carry and we deposited it in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as evidence
against him”.
This nonsensical
statement has remained in the public domain only because some people have
suspended their sense of disbelief and condemned themselves to every hogwash
that Ribadu invents in the attempt spruce himself up in borrowed plums.
It is on record that
Ribadu has made at least five statements over this same claim, and no single
one agreed with another. Also both Ibrahim Lamorde (the immediate past EFCC
Chairman( and one James Garba, a CBN staff then seconded to the EFCC, made
police statements which contradicted Ribadu’s. Even Senator Andy Uba said
in a statement that EFCC collected the said money from his house.
Nigerians should know
that it was the money from Obasanjo’s Third Term Tenure elongation bid that was
dressed up as a bribe just to demonize Ibori. Some five billion dollars
were employed to bribe the national and state legislatures to support the
accursed project, with certain individuals receiving from N50 to N200 million.
The attempt to shoot
Ibori down began in 2003, when some PDP Governors were opposed to Obasanjo’s
second term bid. That money, sourced from wherever, was used against Ibori, as
part of that long-time bring Ibori down project . We challenge any newspaper or
magazine to check all the statements on this bribery allegation and see how
each of them, including Ribadu’s five different statements, screams at Ribadu
himself: “you are a damned liar”. We challenge the journalists to please hasten
to prove us liars by looking into those statements.
In this latest report,
Ribadu told another damned lie: “I arrested Ibori and prosecuted him. Since his
friend was in power, they removed me, sent me to a school as a student where I
was once a teacher”. Nasir el-Rufai has called this tale a terrible
lie. El-Rufai charged in “The Accidental Public Servant” that Ribadu had moved
against the late President Umar Yar’Adua, arresting some Local Government
Chairmen from Katsina State, on trumped up charges and told Ribadu he had over
stepped every boundary of decency, (page 359) “You want me to be
President because I am your friend, not because you think I am quite different
or better than Yar’Adua”. El-Rufai added, (because of Ribadu’s actions against
Yar’Adua) “things have really gone bad for me and all of us”. In fact,
El-Rufai’s title for that section of the book is telling: “Umaru Asks Nuhu For
Support; The Beginning of Our Problems”.
Yet, in two
different books: “My Story; My Vision” by Ribadu himself and in Wale Adebanwi’s
“A Paradise for Maggots”, Ribadu never mentioned his quixotic actions against
Yar’Adua and the repercussions against him and friends. Instead, he claimed
that he was fighting corruption and Yar’Adua went after him after he arrested
Chief James Onanefe Ibori. Azubuike Ishiekwene in “The Trial of Nuhu Ribadu”
failed to note that Ribadu acted corruptly against Yar’Adua and so Yar’Adua had
the most cogent reasons for not wanting Ribadu as head of EFCC.
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