PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan’s office on Monday afternoon responded in sharp tones to Mr. Nuhu Ribadu, the
former chair of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, describing Mr. Ribadu’s recent criticism of the Jonathan Administration in Nigeria as hypocritical and self-serving.
Ribadu had said over the weekend at a public lecture in Kaduna State that the government of President Jonathan was presiding over a “sinking ship,” criticizing what he described as the inability of the federal government to cope with its responsibilities.
The response from the presidency, signed by the president’s chief media adviser, Mr. Reuben Abati, took on a tone similar in harshness to its recent responses to criticism from opposition political figures and institutions in the country.
The president’s office focused particularly on Mr. Ribadu’s claim of increasingly “tyrannical” style of administration by Mr. Jonathan’s government, saying Ribadu’s claim is simply borne of a need by Ribadu to remain relevant in political affairs in the country.
“There can be no doubt that nothing else but blind ambition for an office for which he is clearly unfit is driving Ribadu to infer that an Administration led by a President who welcomed him back to the country after his self-imposed exile, restored his rank in the Nigeria Police to save him from the shame of demotion and converted his dismissal from service to retirement has now become tyrannical and anti-people,” the presidency said, adding that Mr. Ribadu’s “ingratitude” is noted.
Mr. Ribadu’s tenure in office was also mentioned in the release from the presidency, pointing out what it saw as the hypocrisy in Ribadu’s allegation, whereas Ribadu “orchestrated the impeachment of governors with an illegitimate quorum of legislators who had been threatened by the EFCC under his watch.”
“It is certainly the height of hypocrisy for Ribadu who built his entire reputation as an anti-corruption crusader by completely disregarding the rule of law and recklessly trampling on the rights of perceived enemies of the government of the day, to now accuse an administration that has consistently upheld the rule of law and respect for fundamental human rights of being tyrannical,” the presidency added.
In open reference to Mr. Ribadu’s association with Mr. Bola Tinubu, a former two-term governor of the opposition stronghold of Lagos State under the banner of the Action Congress of Nigeria, President Jonathan’s office described as “shameless” for Ribadu to accept to be “a political lackey of a man he once openly accused of corruption at various times between 2004 and 2007.”
“Ribadu’s descent into a moral abyss since leaving the exalted office of EFCC Chairman, his equally ethically-challenged new friends and his willingness to vituperate against any person or institution he perceives as a challenge to the fulfillment of his unattainable ambitions, have clearly exposed him for what he truly is – a thoroughly unprincipled attention-seeker whose entire career in the public service was built on bootlicking and doing the bidding of the powers of the day without a care for legality which should have been his primary concern as an officer of the law.
The release from the president’s office went on to state that Mr. Jonathan’s government would remain focused on its priorities of “implementation of the agenda for national transformation by the falsehoods and vituperations of Ribadu and his new friends.
It added that it would “continue to strengthen institutions of democratic governance in Nigeria, uphold the fundamental human rights of all Nigerians including the youth, and protect their right to elect leaders in free, fair and credible elections.”