RIBADU, BOKO HARAM AND CREATURES OF HABIT!
Written by Alaba Johnson on 10 November 2012.
Ribadu, Boko Haram and Creatures of Habit!
Nigeria is in for another season of contrived controversy now that the Nuhu Ribadu led Petroleum Revenue Special Task Force has delivered its report and the coming of the controversy was expected by the discerning. Reason being that where it not for the executive summons that compelled Malam Ribadu to submit the report (which by the way had been ready since August 2012) Nigerians would have continued to discuss the deliberately leaked report when those who commissioned the report had not even seen it.
Deliberately leaked you may ask? But of course it was deliberately leaked! In Africa we say that if the witch flew at night and the baby died in the morning there is no need for a coroner's inquest.
It is known that Malam Ribadu met with his erstwhile friend Malam Nasir Elrufai for a reconciliatory meeting to mend fences between the duo. Now what happened at that meeting can not be established factually because it was a closed meeting, but what is known is that after that meeting somebody leaked the Petroleum Revenue Special Task Force Report to Reuters.
Now, Sherlock Holmes said, when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable is the truth. While Nigerians where pondering on who must have leaked the report, the leak exposed himself in the following manner.
On Monday the 29th of October 2012, the President ordered the Petroleum Revenue Special Task Force to submit its report. In the morning of the very next day (Monday the 30th of October 2012) Malam Nasir Elrufai released the full unedited copy of the report of the Committee on his personal website, el-rufai.org, within minutes of the report being published on Malam Elrufai's site, the same report was published on Premium Times, a site run by former 234Next journalist. 234Next if you will recall is that paper for which Elrufai famously had an interest. Within hours the report was also on saharareporters.com.
Now it is obvious from this timeline who leaked the report to Reuters, but the question is who leaked the report to Malam Nasir Elrufai, a known antagonist of the Jonathan administration and what was the motive behind this leakage? And then most importantly, why did Elrufai choose to 'officially' leak the report only the day after the President asked to see the report that his government commissioned? Million dollar questions if I may say!
But be that as it may, from the now obviously preconceived loud noises made on Social Media by Elrufai, it is obvious that the agenda was to whip up fuel subsidy like sentiments and get the citizenry roused up against a democratically elected government.
So determined where these agents to use the Ribadu report to bring down the present administration rather than clean the Augean stable that they refused to report the earth shattering news that Boko Haram had nominated Muhammadu Buhari as their mediator for peace talks! Please go to these sites and see for yourself that they blacked out that news item.
Now why would news website notorious for breaking news refuse to break the biggest news of the year? It is obvious that they had instructions from their 'owners' to play up a particular news story.
Now, from meeting with Elrufai, a known antagonist of the administration before the report was submitted, I have it on good authority (and Malam Ribadu can not deny this), that Ribadu met with a rival of President Jonathan who has a predilection for desperately seeking the presidency even if it means betrayal of his boss. Ribadu met this man almost immediately after he presented his report to President Jonathan.
What are the motives for these meetings with antagonists?
Well, again, let us borrow from the famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable is the truth.
These antagonist failed to acknowledge the courage of the President in setting up a committee to purge the oil industry which comprised people outside his sphere of influence. They failed to note that even Nuhu Ribadu testified that the President did not teleguide the committee either directly or via the Minister of Petroleum Resources. Rather they have approached the report with a pre conceived mindset.
The Nuhu Ribadu report covered a period that spanned many years. Most of the suspicious activities in that report occurred while others held sway in the ministry of Petroleum Resources, but all we are hearing is about the incumbent minister and her colleague in the ministry of finance. Why the targeted and selective tar brushing? Discretionary awards were rampant a mere four years ago, why is the name of the particular minister who held sway then not mentioned, I would hate to think that it is because he is from a certain geo-political region, but this is Nigeria where even elders constitute themselves into a forum to push for presidential candidates from their region so anything is possible!
The curious thing about this report is that some of the ills unearthed by Nuhu Ribadu's Committee were happening while he held sway as Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission(EFCC). The Petroleum Revenue Special Task Force Report is as much a self indictment by Malam Ribadu on himself because he is saying that he was either incapable, or unwilling to tackle these ills when he was EFCC Chairman.
And I talked about motives. How about this for motive. About the time of his meeting with Malam Elrufai, the same Elrufai on his twitter profile came out to attack the professional standing of his former colleague when he stated on the 21st of September in a tweet that Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is "nowhere near" Sanusi Lamido Sanusi in intelligence!
Now I know that given that the CBN governor is married to the sister of one of Elrufai's three wives he would have a soft spot for him, but this statement coming around the time of his meeting with Ribadu evidences a motive to bring down the Coordinating Minister of the Economy as a first step in the ultimate plan to bring down the Jonathan administration.
If not, why the mad rush to accuse the current administration of burying the Ribadu Report even before it was submitted? I mean, there were four reports commissioned Including the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) Task Force, Governance and Controls Task Force, the National Refineries Task Force and the Petroleum Revenues Task Force.
The PIB is already before the National Assembly, so it is clear that there is political will to give life to the recommendation of the report, there is already reforms in place in the governmental sector with the most recent reform being the Performance Contract signed between President Jonathan and the Federal Cabinet and between the various ministers and heads of their Departments and Parastatals, and work is ongoing in the reform of our refineries.
So, why pick on the Ribadu Report?
I think the answer can be found in the same reason that the media mouth pieces of these antagonists refused to carry the story about Muhammadu Buhari and the Boko Haram peace talks offer.
It is now clear that the military campaign against Boko Haram by the Joint Task Force as well as the border closures ordered by President Jonathan in January 2012 are working and the noose is tightening around the neck of Boko Haram and those who have gained political traction by blaming the government for the insecurity occasioned by Boko Haram are at a loss and have to hurriedly come up with a new bogeyman to use in demonizing the Jonathan administration hence the desperation to latch on to the Ribadu report.
But they are fighting a losing battle. Malam Nuhu Ribadu himself inadvertently gave out that this report is not the smoking gun they have made it out to be. I will now quote what Ribadu himself said in the letter accompanying his committee's report.
Said Malam Ribadu and the Secretary of the Committee, Olasupo Sasore (SAN) who both signed the report "The data used in this report was presented by various stakeholders who made submissions to the task force in the course of our assignment at various dates which have been disclosed in relevant sections of the report. Due to the time frame of the assignment, some of the data used could not be INDEPENDENTLY VERIFIED and the Task Force recommends that the Government should conduct such necessary verifications and reconciliations."
Right here in black and white Ribadu is telling the world that the figures in his report are not factual, they are based on hearsay evidence that has not been corroborated and yet some persons are jumping up and down for joy at these figures.
Nigerians may want to consider the words of Segun Adeniyi who reported that in a discussion with Malam Elrufai after the death of President Yar'adua he complained to him that he, Elrufai, had unfairly vilified Turai Yar'adua to which Elrufai responded that there was nothing like a 'Turai cabal' but he simply made it up to serve a purpose!
But is it really true that the committee did not have enough time to verify the figures? Anybody who has seen the leaked report knows that it is time stamped August 2012, a full two months before it was officially submitted to the President on Friday November the 2nd.
Only a dim wit will believe that the Malam Nuhu Ribadu of the EFCC renown could not have verified figures in two months. Of course he could have if he wanted to. But did he want to verify? Would his report have been as sensational if he had taken time to verify these figures? The obvious answer is no.
Habit is a very difficult thing to break. Between 2002 when he was appointed EFCC Chair and 2008 when he was sent to 'school' by President Yar'adua, the most common complaint against Ribadu by Nigerians was that he rushed to the press to convict people in the media before he was sure of his case. It seems that Ribadu never broke free from that habit!
http://www.naijapundit.com/news/ribadu-boko-haram-and-creatures-of-habit
Interesting! |
