Posted by By TOPE ADEBOBOYE on
Vice President Atiku Abubakar on Wednesday said he has instructed his lawyers to immediately drag Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Malam Nuhu Ribadu, to court for defamation of character.
Vice President Atiku Abubakar on Wednesday said he has instructed his lawyers to immediately drag Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Malam Nuhu Ribadu, to court for defamation of character.
The EFCC had, in a letter to chairmen of political parties on Tuesday listed 137 prominent politicians it claimed to have indicted for corruption. Atiku's name had topped the list.
But in a press statement by the Atiku Abubakar Campaign Organisation last night, the Vice President described Ribadu's utterances against his person as 'irresponsible, reckless, malicious and part of a deliberate, well-planned and calculated attempt to bring him into public opprobrium and disrepute."
'Ribadu had absolutely no basis to pass such a wicked and vile judgement on his character since the only case the EFCC made against him had been dismissed by a court of competent jurisdiction," the statement further said.
The statement further reads: 'The EFCC had alleged the mismanagement of the Petroleum Technology Trust Fund (PTDF) under the supervision of the Vice President for authorising the placement of deposits in interest-yielding bank accounts. Its report on the alleged crime was the basis for a purported indictment by an Administrative Panel set up by a vindictive President Olusegun Obasanjo who is hell-bent on getting even with Atiku for scuttling his life presidency scheme.
'The Federal Executive Council (FEC) hastily gazetted the purported indictment in a mad rush to satisfy a section of the constitution, which stipulates indictment by a competent judicial and administrative panel as a basis for disqualification from seeking an elective office. But on November 28, 2006, Justice Inimudun Akande of the Lagos High Court ruled that the EFCC Report and the Administrative Panel Report and the consequent gazette of the purported indictment do not exist in law and in fact.
'It is therefore contemptuous of Ribadu to seek to tar Atiku with the brush of corruption on the basis of politically motivated reports, which have been voided by the court. Sadly, we are beginning to see in Ribadu and his sponsors a sickening arrogance of power and a culture of impunity so reminiscent of tyrannies throughout human history."
Where does Ribadu derive his power from? Do the Constitution or the Electoral Law empower Ribadu to pass such a cruel and unguarded judgment on innocent people?
Ribadu has confirmed by his latest action that he is a willing tool in the hands of a vendetta-driven President and that the EFCC has become a coercive agency for the humiliation, intimidation, harassment and defamation of law-abiding Nigerians. It is highly regrettable that a laudable government agency which establishment the Vice President supported and facilitated is now being bastardized, politicized and corrupted by an immature, ill-bred,uncultured and lawless leadership. We do hope that in his quiet moment, Ribadu thinks about his future after the EFCC. Chairing the EFCC does not give Ribadu the license to recklessly destroy the hard-earned reputations of innocent people. Does the headship of EFCC place Ribadu above the law?
Atiku calls on his teeming supporters to disregard this latest attempt to smear him by hired agents of an unconscionable President, adding that it is of no consequence at all. He said his presidential ambition is on course and cannot be stopped by the President and his agents. He called on his supporters to turn up in their hundreds of thousands in Benin on Friday as they did in Kano last Saturday.