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.”

Ms Zee:

i wonder what the idiot will say about the trials he is facing in the US?
Maybe President Obama has asked him to help him unseat Yara Slow

Idiot!

Fools bearing Leaders

The jobless Journats grlisanting him interviews should get a life! who cares to hear about a criminal?

wirinet:

I am puzzled about Ribadu's tactics, can a Ribadu fan please fill me in.

Is bribery of a police office no longer an offense in Nigeria. If Ibori bribed him with $15 million dollars, why did Ribadu not charge Ibori to court immediately in his personal capacity or his capacity as EFCC chairman. At least Ribadu was on sit for about 6 months after Ibori lost immunity. Does it make sense to deposit the money with the central bank and then go to press about 3 years later. What is the status of the money at CBN. Can an individual deposit dollars at CBN? who ones it, is interest being generated on it.

To me it looks like blackmail money. If you do not do what i ask of you, i will go to the press.

I want explanations from Ribadu's people

wirinet:

I am puzzled about Ribadu's tactics, can a Ribadu fan please fill me in.

Is bribery of a police office no longer an offense in Nigeria. If Ibori bribed him with $15 million dollars, why did Ribadu not charge Ibori to court immediately in his personal capacity or his capacity as EFCC chairman. At least Ribadu was on sit for about 6 months after Ibori lost immunity. Does it make sense to deposit the money with the central bank and then go to press about 3 years later. What is the status of the money at CBN. Can an individual deposit dollars at CBN? who ones it, is interest being generated on it.

To me it looks like blackmail money. If you do not do what i ask of you, i will go to the press.

I want explanations from Ribadu's people

Ms Zee:

i wonder what the idiot will say about the trials he is facing in the US?
Maybe President Obama has asked him to help him unseat Yara Slow

Idiot!

Fools bearing Leaders

The jobless Journalists granting him interviews should get a life! who cares to hear about a criminal?

Ms Zee:

i wonder what the idiot will say about the trials he is facing in the US?
Maybe President Obama has asked him to help him unseat Yara Slow  

Idiot!

Fools bearing Leaders

The jobless Journalists granting him interviews should get a life! who cares to hear about a criminal?

ojesymsym:

Have you forgotten so soon that within a week of Ribadu's arrest of Ibori, he was quickly sent to kuri, jos, before his eventual removal.
Please, i use God to beg u, dont take sides with these thieves, except of course u like the way our nation jetting backwards or u (which i believe is wrong) are one of them.

presido1:

Both Ibori and Ribadu are thieves. More that we never heard before will come out of this.
Every right thinking Nigerian know what rule Ribadu played in the third term saga but we will be quick to forget it cuz he is fighting with another criminal called Ibori.
Who paid for the said London Hotel in Mayfair?

We all know Ibori is a criminal but defending another criminal(Ribadu) makes no sense and will not move this country forward. Egwu is today our education Minister, Udenwa is the Commerce Minister are these two not the same as Ibori. Any body that takes appointment from PDP is a criminal from Akunyili to Soludo to Sanusi to Bode George to all of them.

Even if Ibori come to London today they will release him like they did to Alams, itz called British Justice.

The early we let them know that we know their game the better for us. Were they not friends before(birds of the same feather-------------).

otukpo:

God bless u for using your God given brain.

I cannot stand by any of them, they are all thieves and they connived to roast Nigeria dry.

Good example, u mentioned Egwu and Udenwa. What is the difference btw Egwu, Udenwa and Ibori. Someone shld pls tell me.
And someone is there defending someone he doesn't know anything abt.

Pssssssssssseeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwww