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Ribadu: Ibori opens can of
worms
By The Sun Publishing
Tuesday, September 29,
2009
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Chief James Ibori (middle), former governor of Delta State
at The Sun headquarters in Lagos yesterday. He is flanked
on the left and right respectively by the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief,
Mike Awoyinfa and the Deputy Managing Director, Dimgba Igwe.
•Photo: Sun News Publishing |
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Ex-Delta State governor, James Ibori, yesterday insisted that Mallam
Nuhu Ribadu, the former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC), approached him to help unseat President Umaru
Musa Yar’Adua.
A press statement Ibori issued indicated there is no let up in the
media war between the duo, as the former governor described Ribadu
a serial liar.
Ibori had stirred up conflict last Friday, when he told journalists
at a press briefing in Lagos that Ribadu went after him because
he failed to help to actualise the ex-police officer’s bid
to become Inspector General of Police.
He also claimed that Ribadu attempted to recruit him to join his
crusade to void outcome of the 2007 presidential election, promising
to stop corruption charges against him.
Ribadu fired back, describing Ibori as a liar, and claimed he was
only after the former governor for the crimes he committed against
the nation.
Ibori’s latest reaction to Ribadu is presented below:
“Mr Nuhu Ribadu engaged in self-glorification in his
press statement published on Sunday, 27th of September, 2009, taking
an ignoble flight of fancy instead of addressing the issues I raised
in my Media Chat of the preceding Friday, which, by the way, did
not focus solely on Ribadu. The indecorum and name-calling
in his language was not surprising too; they have combined to become
the Ribadu signature tune.
“Yes, I maintain that I never, repeat NEVER, bribed or attempted
to bribe Ribadu, who muddled the facts to hoodwink the public by
alleging that I was speaking after two years of being investigated.
Yet, the bribery allegation I reacted to publicly, was the one he
made in a witness statement in London as recently as August 26,
2009.
I had to reply to that one publicly because as Ribadu himself knows,
that allegation will not be tested by any trial, as no charge whatsoever,
whether related to that bribery allegation or not, has ever been
leveled against me in any court of law in the entire United Kingdom.
His allegation of two years ago, which I have not publicly reacted
to, is being tested in court.
“I expected Ribadu to disprove the contradictions I pointed
out in his Nigerian and London statements as well as those of his
Director of Operations and second in command at the EFCC, Mr. Ibrahim
Lamorde, and Mr. James Garba, a Central Bank of Nigeria staff seconded
to EFCC. Instead, he employed his usual rabble-rousing antics of
name calling, which was the trade mark of his reign as EFCC chairman.
“On my position on resource control and the driving principle
behind my determination to redress the injustice done to the people
of the Niger Delta, Ribadu asked ‘if it is in keeping with
his promise that he became a billionaire overnight on behalf of
the suffering masses of Delta State.’ Ribadu should know that
before I became Governor, my collective wealth was substantial.
Even the London Metropolitan Police admitted in their own witness
statement filed in court that one of my private companies earned
in excess of $5 million annually.
“I have been the most investigated Governor in Nigeria and
the EFCC and London Metropolitan Police are in possession of my
Account statements from the Bank of Austria, Merrill Lynch, Citibank
(I was a CitiGold member, a club of high net worth customers) and
Barclays Bank before I became a Governor. Both the EFCC under Ribadu
and the London Metropolitan Police have dubiously refused to exhibit
these Account statements to maintain their lie.
“Secondly, Nuhu Ribadu must be a serial liar, to attempt to
deny that he approached me to help unseat the present President.
This is one of his numerous on-going attempts to recruit both local
and international friends to undermine President Yar’Adua’s
administration. The persons he approached, including me, are still
alive and they have given testimonies to security agencies. Ribadu
even contacted a high-ranking member of Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC) with complaints that a ‘sick Yar’Adua’
should not be allowed to remain in office and also wanted a serving
judge and member of the electoral panel to convince the team of
INEC officials to concur with his evil plot that the ballot papers
were not serially numbered - to damage Yar’Ardua’s defence.
And he did this with some of his foreign friends who, to date, still
wish President Yar’Adua dead.
“Thirdly, Ribadu said: “I am also open to his friendship
but that will never be at the expense of my loyalty to my fatherland
and commitment to transparency and honesty in public office. Ribadu
should shut up and stop boasting about having been Nigeria’s
anti-corruption Czar. He compromised himself, politicizing
his office, and teamed up with politicians to distribute funds to
influence National Assembly members in the failed third-term tenure
elongation gambit. He was a politician, not anti-corruption fighter.
“Ribadu should wait for the persecution by him and his London
Metropolitan Police friends of my associates to break open in a
full trial. Then I will enclose copious documentary evidence to
substantiate every claim I have made. The opportunistic and brazen-faced
Ribadu is nothing but a fraudulent “anti – corruption
Czar” who operated with instruments of blackmail.
“He should tell the world who paid for his hotel accommodation
at 47 Park Street, Mayfair, London where he stayed on his way from
San Francisco, USA. Additionally, Ribadu went about soliciting for
contributions from those he claimed to be investigating, towards
a non-existent EFCC Football Club, for which he collected large
sums of money which was never applied for the purpose they were
collected. This may account for one of the reasons why he made away
with many files when he was leaving office, and has refused to formally
hand over to his successor in office to date. Has he declared how
much he so collected?
“Worst of all, Ribadu denies that he lobbied me to be Inspector
General of Police, (IGP). I never expected him to admit that fact.
But if he did not approach me to be IGP, at what point did he inform
me of his intention to seek appointment into a narcotics control
arm of the United Nations Organisation? That day he appealed
to me to keep it away from the public, but surprisingly, former
Governor of Abia State, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu, told me, a few
days after, that Mr. Ribadu was indeed seeking for the office and
he heard this from the former World Bank boss, Paul Wolfensohn.
“Of course, Ribadu also pursued Kalu everywhere in the name
of investigation, while all the time hiding evidence that Kalu had
millions of dollars in foreign accounts before he became Abia State
Governor.
“Furthermore, that Ribadu claims to have deposited $15 million
at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is not, and cannot, be proof
that I gave that or any sum of money to him. Also, what greater
felon could there be than he, an architect of a third-term tenure
for a President whose constitutional entitlement is for two terms
only, and who tried to induce, harass, embarrass and humiliate
National Assembly members to support the project.
“Now, Ribadu is using colonial police in London to settle
petty political scores in Nigeria, and he, a lawyer, denigrates
and disrespects our judicial system by constant allegation of judicial
incompetence. My advice to Ribadu is that President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua
has been elected the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
by the Grace of Almighty God. Ribadu should respect the mandate
Nigerians gave to Yar’Adua and stop hopping from one international
capital of the world to another like a junketing gadabout, maligning
the elected President of his country, to entertain the world and
aggrandize himself.
“Ribadu also ranted he would use the London Metropolitan Police
to send a certain Nigerian businessman to prison for alleged money
laundering because he wrote and published a damaging piece about
former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s vindictiveness.
He actually tried to but only succeeded in wasting British taxpayer’s
money as the businessman was discharged and acquitted on the orchestrated
money laundering charges.
“My question is, was that businessman a public officer in
Nigeria? Was it not his masters’ bidding to go after
that man? May I also ask if Otunba Mike Adenuga, the eminently popular
business mogul and chairman of Globacom, whom he targeted and hounded
into exile, also a public officer?
“The same Ribadu, master-minded the ex-convict plot against
me. One night after a meeting of the co-conspirators to frame and
denigrate me at all costs, Ribadu called the businessman to “shoot
his mouth” as usual. That same night, the benefactor phoned
former Vice President Atiku Abubakar alerting him of Ribadu’s
plot against me.
“Sooner Nigerians would know how Ribadu purchased by proxy
the shares that he owns in his friends’ companies. Ribadu
would then have to tell the world whether he bought those shares
with proceeds from his salary. No wonder he has failed to declare
his assets - which tantamounts to a crime.
“Finally, Ribadu, on our friendship, said: “Since I
couldn’t see you when I visited Lagos recently why don’t
you visit me in London to catch up with your other friends”?
I will accept his invitation to visit London as soon as he can prove
to me that the matter in London is not driven by malice and vindictiveness.
Let me remind Ribadu, my friend, that by now I am too smart to be
caught in a political game which himself and his collaborators in
the London Metropolitan Police are playing. If he indeed believes
that the trial of the women they have held hostage in London is
not political, he should allow the process of the court to prove
that, instead of pronouncing people guilty even before they appear
in court as he usually did as EFCC chairman in Nigeria.
“He is not a staff of the London Metropolitan Police. He is
not a member of the Crown Prosecution Service. Neither is he a member
of the jury nor the Judge in the matter.
“If you, Nuhu Ribadu, a Nigerian in London, think you have
the right to invite me to London to face some trumped up charges,
I, a Nigerian with all the rights as a Nigerian, invite you to Nigeria
your home country, where you are a pitiable fugitive from justice.”
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