₦airaland Forum

An ideal 19yr old hardly chooses a politician as his role model let alone being one or even party leader. They simply denied the poor boy his youth, the boy should be allowed to grow up like every other kid.

Besides that the Bhuttos have simply lost an opportunity to democratize the party. A party that wants to be seen as the symbol of democracy in pakistan should start thinking of doing away with heirs to the throne.

,

Iyke-D:
I applaud your optimism, but I have learned to expect the worst from Nigeria.
I think the NASS will get the message that the coast is being cleared to get
back to business as usual.

It can happen but I don't see it, as doing the right thing for the greater good
of the country will be asking too much of Nigerian leaders.

I think you are right

Just got an e-mail from a Senator suggesting the NASS might lack the political will to do that even when it is possible

Lets wait and see, if this deal pulls through without even Mike Okiro paying for standing against the truth. Its goodbye Nigeria for me.

Iyke-D:
The country is cursed. If the people don't react, pretty soon they will be singing praises of OBJ
and retracting all the abuses being reined on him lately. Yar Adua has no ideas and worst of all
no guts to stand against anyone. Say bye to Vision 2020 and welcome Darkness 2020.

NASS has every power to VETO this IGP

This rape is reversible, their is no need giving up.

Well President Yaradua is simply arming any disgruntled military officer with this day light rape

Who wants to live in a country where the President and Inspector General of Police takes orders from a man in Prison.

The question is how do we detach ourselves from the past when coup plotters and dictators become default members of council of state??

If anybody thinks the attack was just an affront on Ribadu they are being naive

This is an affront on EFCC and Nigerians in General.

Routing of EFCC operatives continue, another top EFCC operative, Ibrahim Lamorde, Director of Operations sent on compulsory course in Jos, Plateau State.

Last View on Sat 29th December, 2007
Last Modified on Sat 29th December, 2007 4:54:46 am
Author: Posted by Admin Sahara
Saharareporters, NewYork

Routing of EFCC operatives continue, another top EFCC operative, Ibrahim Lamorde, Director of Operations sent on compulsory course in Jos, Plateau State.
The routing of top EFCC operatives from their immediate constituency, the Nigerian Police Force continued today with another police communication signal directing Lagos-based EFCC Director of Operations, Ibrahim Lamorde to proceed on a compulsory yearlong course at the Police Staff College in Jos, Plateau State.

As earlier reported by Saharareporters, politicians opposed to the anti-graft agency leadership have intensified their efforts through Yar'adua to completely emasculate the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. Their first target was the agency's head, Mr. Nuhu Ribadu who was suddenly asked to proceed on a one-year course at Nigeria's Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) though the police hierarchy led by the Inspector General of Police denies any ulterior motives, the actions have exposed a trend that tallies with the plot by corrupt former governors indicted by the agency for corruption and money laundering.

"This project (emasculation of the EFCC) is a rare coming together of otherwise strange bedfellows to extinguish the anti-corruption war", said an insider at the Aso Rock Villa who maintains that the proponents of the plot have taken over the presidency.

By the latest action, Ibrahim Lamorde, an assistant commissioner of police will have to proceed to the “Senior Command Course” also known as ‘C’ course at the police staff college in Jos, Plateau State.

Just like Nuhu Ribadu, the agency head, Lamorde only knew about his impending course through colleagues in the police force. The Inspector General of Police, IG Mike Okiro nominated and approved of Lamorde’s training without contacting the subject. The ‘C’ course is billed to commence on January 14 2008.
With the successful sidelining of Nuhu Ribadu and Ibrahim Lamorde, sources said the IG’s office acting in cahoots with disgraced politicians now targets six more senior police officers within the EFCC for transfer. The EFCC is primarily dominated by police operatives who make up 70% of its roughly 1,400 staff.

When someone is sacked for doing his job right, why will those who sacked him replace him with someone who will do the same job right This is not about Ribadu being EFCC. Tell me why anybody who takes over will do his job fearlessly and thereby put himself at risk of suffering Ribadu's faith.

Just waiting for the NASS to resume, if they don't veto this illegality by the IGP then there is no use having them. Mike Okiro will never get away with this. He more than anyone else needs to go to school to learn how to be a man.

Mike Okiro is such a big fool.

Mamajama

You seem to know all police officers personally, advise his kids to advise him to start preparing his resignation letter.

A man who descends so low as backdating a memo to the President, and helping people on the wrong side of the law evade Justice has no business being inspector general of police.

A no confidence vote is underway from both the public and the NASS.

Ribadu's removal delayed by US,UK intervention.

Last View on Fri 28th December, 2007
Last Modified on Fri 28th December, 2007 2:15:00 pm
Author: Posted by Admin Sahara


Even though hawks within the Yar’adua kitchen cabinet have foreclosed rescind of the planned removal of EFCC Chairman Nuhu Ribadu the plot may have been put on hold, temporarily by the Umar Yar'adua government as the US and UK authorities waded in yesterday to prevent an outright removal of Ribadu by government. The delay is issuing a statement was so because Yar’adua contemplated that Nuhu Ribadu might see the handwriting clearly on the wall and resign both his commission in the police force and his headship of the EFCC, neither has happened as of the time of publishing this report.

Saharareporters was first to report about series of detailed plans by the regime to get rid of Nuhu Ribadu as the EFCC chairman, in an attempt to please former Governor James Ibori, a major financier of the Yar'adua presidential election.

At the latest, Ribadu’s removal was hatched in Kaduna prison at the behest of James Ibori and former governors indicted for corruption with active collaboration by Yar’adua, Governor Bukola Saraki of Kwara State, Baba Gana Kingibe and Michael Aondoakaa and lately Andy Uba whose police escorts were yanked by the IG on Christmas eve (Andy Uba was said to have found out from his sources at the EFCC that the commission had reached an advanced stage in investigations detailing corruption, money laundering and racketeering activities against him). Ibori is currently remanded in prison custody where he enjoys a luxurious lifestyle that one source described as akin to those of Colombian drug kingpins of the 1990s.

Inspector General of Police, Mike Okiro had announced that Nuhu Ribadu was proceeding to the National Institute for Policy and Strategy Studies (NIPSS), Kuru-Jos on a compulsory one-year course.

New information surfaced last night that Ribadu was nominated by the Inspector General of Police for the NIPSS course after nominations had closed. A top police officer who requested anonymity told Saharareporters that officers nominated to the NIPSS course at Kuru typically get up to six-three months notice from the IG.“It is general knowledge in the NPF that you don’t get nominated to go to Kuru without your knowledge”, insisted our source.

Also, a source close to Ribadu said the Inspector General had not informed Ribadu or any member of the board of the commission about the impending course but instead the IG wrote a backdated memo to Yar’adua seeking approval to send Ribadu to the NIPSS last week.

The source described Ribadu's nomination as a smoke screen. “The real deal behind the Inspector General's decision was James Ibori,” said the source.

Saharareporters interviewed several members of Ibori’s inner circle and other political interests involved in the plot and they admitted to our reporters that they recently stumbled on the "Kuru Option” as they sought to tame a rampaging Nuhu Ribadu from wreaking further damage on the political class. But they now express cautious optimism as they fear that Ribadu might raid all of James Ibori’s associates before his departure from the EFCC.

The EFCC had penciled down Senators Markafi, Sanni Yerima, and George Akume all former governors for arrest and prosecution in the first week of January 2008.

They also have lined up former governor of Edo State, Lucky Igbinedion (currently hiding in Europe); former governor, Peter Odili of Rivers State (said to have fled to Rome, Italy), Obong Victor Attah, formerly of Akwa Ibom and also the patriarch of the Saraki and other family members of the Saraki family for the fraud perpetrated by the Saraki’s at the failed Societe Generale Bank of Nigeria.

The decision to send Nuhu Ribadu to the NIPSS was taken last week at a meeting of several politicians meeting in Kaduna after they visited James Ibori in prison, and then at Maitama area of Abuja. The decision was then consummated on Christmas eve.

Although the American and British embassies have issued no statement regarding their intervention, Saharareporters gathered that both countries were working feverishly behind the scene to prevail on Yar’adua to grant Ribadu at least a one-year deferment on his NIPSS course.

We also gathered that both the US and the UK governments were working to bring in the German Chancellor to join their efforts. The Germans have better leverage on Yar'adua since Yar’adua has been receiving medical treatment in Germany. German doctors have been managing Yar’adua’s kidney ailment.
Meanwhile a silent war may brewing within the EFCC, two camps have emerged within the agency over the replacement of Nuhu Ribadu, while civilians professionals and operatives the NFIU (the intellgence gathering arm of the EFCC) support the emergence of Akomaye as the new EFCC chairman, police operatives who make up 70% of the EFCC want one of their own to become the chairman. It is not clear who will be chosen to head the EFCC if diplomatic efforts led by the UK and US government fail to get Yar'adua tochange the decision of the IG on Nuhu Ribadu.

Whether Ribadu goes or not, Mike Okiro is in trouble

That is the price of standing against the truth.

[size=16pt]Council of State [/size]

The Nigerian Council of State is an organ of the Nigerian Government. Its functions include advising the executive on policy making.

[edit] Composition

The Council of State consists of the following persons:

* President, who is the Chairman;
* Vice-President, who is the Deputy Chairman;
* All former Presidents of the Federation and all former Heads of the Government of the Federation;
* All former Chief Justices of Nigeria;
* President of the Senate;
* Speaker of the House of Representatives;
* All the Governors of the states of the Federation; and
* Attorney-General of the Federation.

Every passing day we moan about our past leaders without doing anything systematically to detach ourselves from that past. What hope for the future when the failed past has become a permanent part of our future.

As a country which experienced executive kleptocracy by past leaders especially Military heads of Government, its about time the aspect of the constitution which makes it mandatory for past military heads of Government to become life members of council of State be reviewed.

We have no business hoping to move forward when our failed past is an integral part of the future.

In fact I think a past head of Government should have to pass through NASS screening to be a member of Council of State, a screening which should be based on merit and how most your actions reflected National Interest as leader.

Otherwise our elections will continue to be cosmetic since whoever we vote for is at risk of being teleguided by past corrupt leaders.

You were reminding us of Ribadu being political

And I stated his political misdeed which was to stop IBB

BigB1

Finally, Ribadu and IBB will not appear on the same pages of our history books

If IBB is honest enough he will tell you how much he admires Ribadu's reputation which his $3b can not buy.

Nobody is panicing, Ribadu has challenged everybody in the country who has anything against him to come forward

However, the affairs of Ribadu like everyother security operative must be confidential to protect him.

And by the way the whole funds that has come to EFCC both from the Federal Government and Western Donors put together may not be as much as what IBB looted from Nigeria. So if Ribadu ever stole from EFCC cofers he would not have stolen as much as IBB or even his kids.

So what is the American wonder about

Iyke-D:
Who the Bleep is this IBB? Are you referring to that thieving conniving chicken hearted general
who wanted to lead Nigeria again, but had to scurry away like a rat when OBJ put his foot down?
Please!

You know what? Iyke-D

The battle to move Nigeria forward should move to the Federal Executive Council. What is their use as an institution and why must they be part of the Government.

It is no doubt that as Nigerians we have a past we do not wish to remember, when it comes to leadership. So what is the very essence of keeping an association of failed leaders as the Presidential think-thank.

Whats the point having an election in this country when no matter who we vote, whether progressive or conservative, whether right-wing or left-wing; they will inherit a group of generals who failed as leaders and bent to protect their interest as advisors.

Is it not clear that our whole idea of democracy is cosmetic since we have leaders by default who will teleguide whoever is voted?

Big B1:
Trust me, Ribadu did not stop IBB in anyway.
IBB too exceptional to allow mere ribadu to stop him. ribadu + OBJ together just don't have what it takes, trust me.

FYI: From start, deep down inside, IBB didn't want to be the next Nigerian president; if that wasn't the case, IBB would have been living in Aso Rock today.
Trust me, IBB gets what he wants, always!

Lets not get into that debate, because it was in full glare that IBB accompanied with his family went to pick the PDP form only to withdraw from the race days later. Whatever stopped IBB that is not the corruption case against him, only IBB and his praise singers will know.

God knows what that reason might be that he did not think through over 10years before picking the PDP form but realised within days after picking the form.

Your annoyance with Ribadu is having the guts to stop IBB

We understand your grouse.

mazaje:
Same old rhetorics, we are wise enough to see through and beyond all that. you clearly dislike ribadu and any effort to curtail corruption in Nigeria so spare us all the rhetorics.

The reason an assistant inspector general of police is being put under pressure by BigB1 to declare his assets when the IGP and DIGs have not declared theirs is not far fetched.

Reminds me of one familiar word BigB1 love's "Selectivity"

I have said it before, very soon we will accuse Ribadu for our inability to impregnate our wives

well if its about the IGP, then he has no power to cut short the tenure of the EFCC boss as provided in the EFCC act.

Due process was not followed

So what instruction of the President is the IGP carrying out?

Sending police officers to course (that obviously is not the prerogative of the President) or delegating the IGP to sack the EFCC Boss (which is also an illegality in law).

However you look at it, the move is illegal and will not stand. We should not be living in captive mentality, it is that same mentality which got Mike Okiro in the middle of this mess.

An independent minded IGP will honestly advice the President to sack Ribadu with his Presidential myth.

The law requires him to sack EFCC boss if he so wish, the law did not say he should delegate the right to sack the EFCC boss to the IGP.

Except you are telling me that the President has the right to implement laws not yet passed by the NASS.

If the NASS wakes up to its duties, this move will be reveresed watch out!!!!

I thought we were operating under rule of law?

Mamajama:
RIbadu has nothing to say but to comply. people do not forget the IGP is answerable to the president. OKIRO is only doing what he has been directed to do by MR GO SLOW YAR ADUA.

I strongly think this move will benefit Ribadu in the long run. There are seven AIG in the Nigerian police force whom all have seniority over RIBADU and have all been to this school in JOS.

To elevate RIBADU to the RANK of IGP in future his adversaries will have no grounds to base their arguments that he has never been to a mandatory course for senior police officers.

SOLOMON ARASE is replacement is a fine officer. I know him personally but he is not RIBADU

You cant predict the politics of appointing an IGP. Ribadu could be given the Ogbonna Onovo treatment. And I dont think their is anything like heir to the throne in any Government appointment.

omofineboy:
Some of us missed the point about TENURE even if u have 10 year tenure of office, the person that appointed you has the exclusive right to remove you. whether he/she has a good reason to do that is another story. Yaradua has the right to remove whoever he appointed or as the act establishing EFCC may stipulates, but I am still of the opinion that there are many Nigerians who will perform better than Ribadu at least he has laid a foundation.

With all due respect I think you are missing the point!!!!

Yaradua's right to remove Ribadu is unquestionable, all we are saying is he should be bold enough to sack him if he wants.

However, the Inspector General of police has no power whatsoever to overwrite the EFCC act which gave Ribadu a 4year tenure all in the name of course as that will amount to removing him through the back door.

President Yaradua has just murdered Public Trust.

Babasin

You did not even understand the statement you quoted. LOL

I wonder why we try to insinuate that its only Ribadu and noo one else can can fight corruption in Nigeria

Not only Ribadu can fight corruption obviously, but Ribadu has a 4yr tenure which he has to finish except he is sacked. The last time I checked people are sacked for being inefficient, people are not sacked for doing their job.

So why replace Ribadu before the end of his tenure if he is doing his job right?

And worst of all, he is not being sacked. They are only attempting to remove him through the back door. Why??

President Yaradua, Mike Okiro, Mike Aondoakaa, Babagana Kingibe will be so shocked, because while their conspiracy has shifted from the office of AGF to IGP . Ribadu's resistance has shifted from the office of EFCC to the Nigerian People.

[size=16pt]NUHU RIBADU: THE STUDY LEAVE IS ILLEGAL-Bamidele Aturu[/size]

Last View on Fri 28th December, 2007
Last Modified on Fri 28th December, 2007 7:01:26 am
Author: Posted by Admin Sahara




The decision of the top echelons of the Police and Yar’ Adua administration to ease out Mr Nuhu Ribadu as the Chairperson of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is illegal and despicable to say the very least. It is illegal because the law establishing the EFCC is very clear and unambiguous. That law does not admit of an unrequested study leave or of any study leave for that matter. The Chairperson of the EFCC has a fixed tenure of four years. Of course he can be removed by the President if he suffers any infirmity of mind or body; if he misconducts himself; or if the President thinks it is in the interest of the public to remove him. There is no basis for asking the man to proceed on study leave for any duration under the Act. It is therefore simply mischievous to argue that since he was seconded from the Police his tenure can be tampered with at will.

If the President thinks that he can no longer tolerate the man he should muster the courage to simply say so and leave Nigerians to make up their minds about his obvious lack of seriousness on the war against corruption. Those arguing that Mr Ribadu is not dispensable miss the point completely. If he were indispensable his name would have been written in the EFCC law. The point is that it is illegal to interfere with a fixed tenure under the guise of granting a gratuitous and unsolicited study leave. Very soon if this clear nonsense is not reversed we would enter the era of asking Governors to proceed on study leave. Of course, that would be an absolute illegality just as in the case of Mr Ribadu.

I oppose this illegal study leave as i am convinced that it was contrived by the enemies of our people, led by the corrupt ex and serving public officials to truncate the war against corruption. It is a war against our people and it is very wicked of them to slap us in the face with the study leave contrivance. I will support all moves to challenge those who hatched this illegality. Nigerians must resist the cabal whose only profession is to loot and steal our resources. They will not get away with this infamy.

I congratulate President Yar’ Adua for showing his true colours now. He has now shown clearly that he is a friend of corrupt people and that he will do everything to protect them. I wish him goodluck. Henceforth he should spare us those sermons of his on anti-corruption; for a friend of corrupt people will find it difficult to convince reasonable people that he himself is clean. This government has lost any capacity to fight corruption with this terrible decision.
Mr Okiro should simply resign for lending the weight of his office to this obvious illegality. We will hold him personally responsible for any harm that may happen to Mr Ribadu at Kuru or elsewhere. For there is no doubt that the study leave will expose the man to needless harm which he has no time to plan for, more so as the study leave is imposed. For our people we have a long way to go. The war is not over yet over. Very soon many suspects will start getting all sorts of funning bails. I can assure them this victory of theirs will not last. This country can no longer be safe for corrupt people.

The NASS should sit quickly and debate whether the IGP has the power to overwrite the EFCC act which states that the Chairman must have a 4year tennure.
We can no longer sit back and allow people rape us as a Nation.

I agree with Bamidele Aturu, if Ribadu is re-instated in accordance to the law and provisions of the EFCC act. A no confidence vote should be passed on Mike Okiro after which he is forced to resign.

[size=16pt]Don’t Remove Ribadu — Soyinka Warns[/size]
Posted by admin on 2007/12/28 15:43:23 (75 reads)

Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has condemned the removal of Nuhu Ribadu as chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Soyinka in a statement today said the removal amounts to “ ‘assassination’ of the head of an organization that commenced the process of restoring dignity to a people whose nation has become a byword for the most breath-taking scam in high-places, for endemic corruption, a contempt for accountability and transparency and the abuse of national resources in the pursuit of personal and party power consolidation.”

Here’s his full statement: I can only hope that Benazir Bhutto’s followers will forgive me for saying this, but the news of Nuhu Ribadu’s removal from the anti-corruption Nigerian organisaton known as the EFCC will have, in all likelihood, a far more devastating impact on the psyche of the Nigerian nation than the deadly event that now threatens to further destabilize the tortured nation known as Pakistan, through the assasination of her democratic front runner, Benazir Bhutto. Let me pause here to express my sincere condolences to the people of Pakistan.

What is at stake for us in Nigeria is not much different however: the restoration and consolidation of democracy, not in any sentimental or rhetorical sense, but as a lived reality that restores dignity to the people of any nation and guarantees their day to day security. The precarious socio-political condition into which the Pakistani people have been thrown echoes, in both parallel and divergent directions, the blow dealt to the Nigerian nation by the ‘assassination’ of the head of an organization that commenced the process of restoring dignity to a people whose nation has become a byword for the most breath-taking scam in high-places, for endemic corruption, a contempt for accountability and transparency and the abuse of national resources in the pursuit of personal and party power consolidation.

At every opportunity, we have stressed the obvious but ignored fact that the liberalization of political space is contingent upon the moral cleansing of such space. Thus the need to identify and contain – including by punitive means - individuals and organisations that operate on the open nexus easily summed up as : power derives from corruption which in turn fuels and guarantees power. The battle against corruption therefore goes beyond the walling out of illegal economnc advantages. Corruption is the very bedrock of political illegitimacy. The tree of democracy cannot thrive on the compost of corruption.

This obvious attempt at crippling one of the two anti-corruption crusade agencies of the nation, unarguably aggressive and result oriented on an unprecedented scale, must therefore be read as an assault on the very bastion of democracy. Again, I refer to my earlier indications: that the riddle of most of the political murders in the nation will be solved when the anti-corruption project has attained its ultimate goal of unearthing the hidden. Let me refer yet again to the notorious case where a presiding judge on a politically motivated murder case threatened early to withdraw from the case. Soon after, he withdrew from the case altogether - the pressure, he openly announced, coming from the most unexpected quarters, had made his task impossible. That judge noted down details of monetary inducements that were offered to make him grant bail to a high-profile suspect. The upward spiral of that political suspect since his ‘acquittal’ says much about the umbilical cord that trails from material to political corruption.

The ruling party of Nigeria, the PDP has proved yet again that there is no reformist agenda possible within its ranks. The presidential incumbent bears the primary and ultimate responsibility for this grotesque reversal of the nation’s frustrated push towards possible redemption, but it is the ruling party itself, the PDP, that continues to suffocate the nation in its folds of corruption, negating every attempt to rid her of this incubus, since that party has exhibited itself, again and again, as the very quagmire of corruption, nurtured on corruption, sustained by corruption and dependent on corruption for its very survival.

Let all sophistry be abandoned - the removal of Nuhu Ribadu is not about the removal of one individual. We are talking about signals, portents for future conduct, about the erosion of credibility, abandonment of principle, all of which of course transcend any individual. The timing, when viewed with the recent call to re-open the case-files of unsolved political murders, will be regarded as a coincidence only by starry-eyed innocents from space – good luck to them. Those of us who have the slightest knowledge of behind-the-scenes manipulations since the trail of detection moved ever closer to the very apex of governance under the past regime, know that the nation was being brought closer and closer to the dismantling of one of the most sinister and corrupt governance machines that this nation has ever confronted – including even the incontinent reign of Sanni Abacha. Ribadu’s removal is therefore not an individual predicament. The situation here does not permit of the familiar cliche of any one individual being less than an institution or agency – no, that is not the issue! The issue is that an effective agency has been tampered with, unnecessarily, but with transparent motivations that constitute an assault on the corporate integrity of the nation. The trust of the nation has been abused - that is the issue. Instead of reinforcing the autonomy of an organization that is clearly dedicated to probity and political integrity, notice has been sent to all four corners of the nation, and to the international community that, at the slightest threat to the hegemony of corrupt rule, the credibility of even the most laudable institutions will be eroded.

Is this the last word? Is Nuhu Ribadu yet another sacrificial lamb on the altar of success and promise of more and more success? If so, the nation has indeed been brought to an abysmal low. Confusion has been deliberately and liberally sown. The reign of vanishing files, denied directives and ambiguous legal advices has begun where dubious Attorney-Generals fill the vacuum created by high level movements of personnel in multiple directions where those in the most sensitive and knowledgable places vanish into the bureaucratic maze, with hardly a trace of the rewards of their long dedicated industry. Technical extensions of cut-and-dried prosecutions will now lengthen into eternity and of course – oblivion.

What a dismal, contemptuous New Year gift to the nation! Again, I lament with the democratic people of Pakistan but, even in the midst of your grief, spare a moment of pity for that land of eternal missed opportunities and blighted hopes, that clay-footed giant sibling on a continent to your West, known as – Nigeria.

---- Culled from PM News


This is the darkest day in this democratic dispensation. Every Nigerian who love progress should rise up against this rape.

You people dont know why Dora has not being blackmailed

Those who deal on fake drugs simply do not have political clout, otherwise she would have been accused of one thing or the order

Nigeria corruption tsar sidelined
Nuhu Ribadu
Nuhu Ribadu was promoted in April
The head of Nigeria's anti-corruption unit has reportedly been ordered to go on year-long study leave, in an apparent attempt to sideline him.

Nuhu Ribadu, who has spearheaded Nigeria's attempts to combat financial crime, is involved in the prosecution of seven former state governors.

Observers say that if he is removed from his post, it will be a blow to President Umaru Yar'Adua's credibility.

The president came to power in May promising to fight rampant corruption.

Reports say Mr Ribadu was told to tender his resignation in readiness for further studies.

Nigeria's police chief Mike Okiro called a press conference to say there were no ulterior motives behind the new posting.

Mr Okiro said Mr Ribadu had been ordered to attend a one-year policy and strategic studies course in central Nigeria, according to Reuters news agency.

Promotion

In April, outgoing President Olusegun Obasanjo promoted Mr Ribadu and gave him a new four-year mandate to co-ordinate anti-corruption work.

His critics, who saw Mr Ribadu as an ally of Mr Obasanjo, said he was being rewarded for silencing the opposition.

Chris Albin-Lackey, researcher on Nigeria at Human Rights Watch, told Reuters that if Mr Ribadu's suspension goes ahead, "the day he leaves office will be the day the credibility of Nigeria's 'war on corruption' is entirely destroyed".

The campaign group Transparency International, describes Nigeria as one of the most corrupt countries in the world.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) under Mr Ribadu has convicted over 150 persons involved in economic and financial crimes since its establishment in 2003.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7162719.stm