By Dr Ugoji Egbujo
Born in 1960, Nuhu Ribadu, perhaps, had independence in his genes. Son of a first republic parliamentarian from Yola, Nuhu came with a good spoon in his mouth. After he studied law, he joined the police, climbing the career ladder of a corrupt and disoriented institution. Young Ribadu, it appeared, resisted the mind bending culture and stored a grudge for filth. But cynics saw a temperamental, conceited, attention-seeking, power-hungry, and callow fellow. In 2003, after glimpses of promise at the department of prosecution, Nuhu arrived on the national stage.
It was 2003. President Obasanjo created the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and picked Nuhu Ribaduto clean the Augean Stable. Many said courage that was not stained with rabid materialism recommended Ribadu. On the saddle, Nuhu Ribadu approached his task with fanatical zeal. He went after sacred cows, taking them by the horns and with glee. His ethic was rambunctious crime control rather than due process. Ribadu, it seemed, wanted to change Nigeria in a hurry. He stepped on Babangida, he bruised Adenuga and he had to flee, he dragged Tafa Balogun the Inspector General in chains through the mud to jail. Ever since nobody has matched his daringness.
Ribadu was far from a saint. His excesses were as telling as his passion. His EFCC instigated the impeachment of many thieving governors by hounding members of state legislatures. Critics said arbitrariness and abuse of power were as sinful as treasury looting. Opponents of the president’s suspected third term ambition said it was roguish selective justice. The flagrant disregard for due process in order to land a punch on corruption didn’t attract public opprobrium. Critics feared Ribadu would become a monster. In some cases, brazenly, a minority of the house of assembly was used to impeach sitting governors. Processes the courts later voided and described as kangaroo. One of Ribadu’s Achilles heels was the character of his loyalty to the appointing authority. Some said its ‘eye-service’ or ‘lickspittle’ content was a bit too much.
Despite the excesses and signs of vacuousness, the masses celebrated Ribadu. Since Idiagbon, they hadn’t seen any Nigeria land a blow and make impunity stagger. Ribadu rejected a 15 million dollar bribe and returned it to the CBN. Ribadu brought down 419 cartels and chased others into oblivion. He rejected a hefty bribe from Nwude of the Nwude and Anajemba intercontinental notoriety. The people had found their hero. The world was fascinated. Politicians and government officials fretted. Being a maverick, who appeared interested in hugging the limelight as much as fighting financial crimes, corrupt politicians couldn’t count on him. But soon he slid into the slippery grounds of politics.
Ribadu understood his environment. To succeed, he had to break rules. The state had been captured. The arms of the law were short and weak. He tried to get corruption courts to quicken the pace of justice. He couldn’t. He sought to build a professional fraternity of a few judges. With them, he could circumvent tardiness and rituals to secure convictions. Yet, sometimes, the only viable option was a media trial. Many arrests happened before investigations. So indefinite detentions without trial were commonplace. Ribadu had earned the trust of the public. At his peak, Ribadu was a tenacious watchdog barking at and biting politicians who were stealing the country blind and fraudsters, who were damaging our reputation.
At some point, he must have reflected upon his work and thought it would all come to nothing if our elections, which were incurably dubious, remained just a conveyor belt for the recycling of corrupt politicians. In 2007, Ribadu tried to influence the outcome of the political process. Some politicians were unconstitutionally banned because they were blacklisted by the EFCC. Others were pencilled down to be inhibited. Critics said that was the confirmation that Ribadu was a political wolf in a prosecutorial sheep’s clothing. For the public, Ribadu was the incorruptible conqueror of looters of the public treasury, his farts and misdemeanours were only the confirmation he wasn’t a spirit.
By 2007, Ribadu was at the peak of his glory. Outgoing Obasanjo promoted him and renewed his tenure at the EFCC. But Yaradua became president and Mike Okiro, the new Inspector General of Police, transferred Ribadu away from the EFCC to Kuru. That was the watershed. Soyinka wasn’t silent those days. He protested the attempt to castrate Ribadu and the EFCC. Chief Umezoke, the chairman of the main opposition party, ANPP, said the country was returning to infamy. This general sentiment was that Ribadu, a ray of hope, was on the verge being dimmed out by the agents of darkness. After two assassination attempts, Ribadu fled into exile.
The return of Ribadu in 2010 was followed by his immersion in the putrid waters of partisan politics. An unholy baptism. On joining Tinubu’s party, Tinubu handed him the presidential ticket but continued to flirt with President Jonathan. Ribadu’s dalliance with Tinubu, whom many considered the archetypal politician, was the begining of the demystification of Ribadu in the eyes of many. However, pragmatic were more forgiving. They said Ribadu needed a godfather to reach the power pinnacle after which he would resume the crusade. Predictably, Ribadu failed to make any impact at the elections. Those who thought he was an overambitious and callow pawn sneered at him.
If his sojourn in the ACN had a veneer of respectability, his defection to the ruling PDP to run for the 2015 Adamawa governorship seemed the stuff of sheer desperation. Ribadu had disdained the PDP and its leaders. Now he prostrated before them to be anointed. Ribadu’s moral compass seemed utterly broken. Many who had adored him from a distance started to mourn. Mallam Ribadu had become another peripatetic politician scavenging for relevance without principles. When he was schemed out, he looked like an Esau after the porridge had finished.
Buhari became president in 2015. Ribadu defected once again to the ruling APC. Again, he defected in time to seek again the Adamawa governorship ticket in 2019. At this point, Ribadu was a confirmed ‘AGIP’ ( in love with Any Government In Power.) The grudge against corruption had vanished. The man had become the very thing he had for so long despised. Yet some sympathized with him and justified his apparent political promiscuousness as stooping to conquer to save the people. Because without power, ill-gotten or not, he could not resume the sanitization exercise. Ribadu was the sort of character Buhari would have loved. But Buhari didn’t use him. And that in itself was a sign of telling depreciation.
As the 2023 elections drew near, Ribadu, after suffering another defeat in Adamawa, pitched his tent in Bourdillon. Fortunately, Ribadu was not forgotten like Fani Kayode. Tinubu, who had handed him a presidential ticket in what was once termed as the marriage of the Beauty and the Beast, was still enamoured of him. Many of us, who retained vestiges of political lust for Ribadu, quietly hoped he would be the NSA. Because, we hoped for someone who had at some point in life had championed a small scale revolution. The reformation of the nation’s security architecture was a priority. Meanwhile, Ribadu’s men began a whispering campaign, hinting that he had a novel security strategy. Many, propelled by nostalgia, fell headlong for it.
Ribadu became the NSA. And started following Tinubu everywhere he went like an ADC. A powerful NSA, because of his closeness to the president, but with no powerful ideas. Days, weeks and months passed. Only photo ops with new service chiefs. Those who had said he would establish a homeland security outfit to contain rampaging banditry and kidnapping and save the military that has been spread too thin from burnout went mute. Ribadu looked swallowed in oversized shoes. Our security architecture remained terribly unimaginative and constipated. A lot of motion but no new purposeful direction. The raw energy Ribadu had brought to the infant EFCC and restored the faith of many in government was nowhere.
The president can’t fashion new military strategies. Local mercenaries are performing military duties, protecting the country’s economic lifelines. Senior political figures are now asking for foreign mercenaries. The president can’t fashion any political strategies to douse tensions and quench fires. He hasn’t even bothered to tour the regions. He seems too arrogant to be sober. The Chief of Defence Staff spoke about Finland with visible frustration. Nothing tangible followed. The smarter youths are fleeting. A broke country that lacks urgency and imagination at the helm seems too bleak for them. The government, it seems, doesn’t know that slowing the brain drain is of national security importance.
But that’s not the most worrying bit. In the last few weeks, Mallam Ribadu has been on television pushing alternative facts. It’s been a most difficult watch. Some are now calling him Comical Nuhu. Ribadu, with a straight face, told Nigerians that insecurity had been significantly contained, and they could travel wherever they liked whenever they liked. Many laughed. But many of us, who love him, mourned. Ribadu was the hero. Now, he is the cheery sycophant.
If that outing was hilarious, the next at the Customs Conference was truly heart rending. After showering effulgent praises on Customs Service, Ribadu he switched to talk about Lakurawa, a new insurgency that has been claiming lives of innocent citizens and collecting taxes in Sokoto and Kebbi. He couldn’t find sobriety. He wallowed in flippancy and frivolity. He said the insurgency had come at the wrong time. Because this was Tinubu’s time. And since Tinubu had never lost to anyone, the insurgency was doomed. That bombastic Ribadu would have been unrecognizable to anyone who saw him last in 2007. The self-abasing praise-singer bruising sensibilities of his admirers with hymns of messianism for Tinubu can’t be Nuhu Ribadu. Ribadu, the famed critic of politicians, now says Tinubu’s critics will be put to shame in a country where corruption and insecurity and hardship are at an all time high. Not even the fact that many EFCC-indicted crooks now share Tinubu’s cabinet table with Ribadu has touched Ribadu’s conscience.
The debate is now raging. Is Ribadu now a shadow of himself and was he always an impostor? May God reverse the metamorphosis of the great Mallam Ribadu. He can’t become fact-bending otimkpu for a political godfather, no matter the motivation. The Igbo say the mad man roams around, his mind with him. But God knows that while it’s smart to stoop to conquer, sinking to depths of sycophancy in search of power could be a political and moral journey of no return.
My tears are not for Ribadu. Ribadu’s metamorphosis is the story of Nigerian politics. My tears are for Nigeria, my beloved country with a decadent political culture that sabotages promise and talent, and distributes poverty.
Dr Egbujo is a columnist with Vanguard