Former Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Chairman, Mr. Nuhu Ribadu may have ruffled some feathers by naming some Nigerians who according to him are fighting back corruption and end the war in Nigeria.
Speaking under the theme “Corruption and the Nigerian Economy: Lawyers as Change Agents”, Mr. Ribadu named foremost lawyer, Ben Nwabueze, former Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Michael Aondoakaa, and his successor at the EFCC, Farida Waziri, as those who undermined Nigeria’s efforts to fight corruption.
He was appointed to the chairmanship of the EFCC in 2003 and reappointed him in 2007, as well as promoting him to the position of Assistant Inspector General of Police by former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
“I still recall with amazement and shock how some very senior lawyers made it a duty upon themselves to bring down the EFCC and stop the work we were doing. Many of them, like Prof. Ben Nwabueze, SAN, teamed up with politicians to wage a very serious propaganda to discredit the work we were doing,” he said.
He also said Mr. Nwabueze personally went to court on many occasions to challenge the powers of the EFCC to fight corruption.
“One thing that also did a serious damage to the war against corruption was the active connivance of some senior lawyers who represented the governors we charged to courts after the 2007 election,” he said.
“It is on record that we charged the former governors of Jigawa, Taraba, Adamawa, Plateau, Enugu, Ekiti, Delta, Abia and Edo states as the first set of ex-governors to face prosecution. However, almost 10 years after most of the cases have not gone anywhere because of deliberate action by lawyers to frustrate the trials,” he said.
Mr. Ribadu said he was shocked that some lawyers who found themselves in government also worked against the fight against corruption.
“Take the case of Mr. Michael Aondoakaa, whose most cardinal agenda as the AGF seemed to be destroying EFCC by every means possible and frustrating all the cases.
“In that regard he attempted to take over the prosecutorial powers of the commission, which would have rendered the EFCC into a toothless bulldog. But of course we resisted,” he said.
He said after Farida Waziri replaced him as the chairman of the EFCC, Mr. Aondoakaa found a partner in her.
Mr. Ribadu said Mrs Waziri “inflicted serious damages on the EFCC from which the commission is still struggling to recover”.
He said following the appointment of Waziri, corrupt practices that were unheard of became widespread in the Commission and outside lawyers were brought in to handle very important cases that sometimes were turned into avenues of making money.
He cited one of such cases as the Halliburton scandal.
“We did all the work and took the investigation to a very advanced stage, but the case was handed over to private lawyers who connived with some officials to feather their nests from it.
“The lawyers ended up earning more than even the government, to the anguish of those diligent workers who built the case. That was a very unprofessional practice and against global best practice,” he said.
He also said that the United States and the UK who had similar cases did not involve any private lawyer to handle it for them.
Mr. Ribadu spoke on Thursday when he presented the lead paper at the 2016 Annual Lecture organised by the Law Chambers of Joe Kyari Gadzama in Abuja.