Reeling under piled allegations of misrule, former military dictator, Gen Ibrahim Babangida, is now recovering from his political coma, threatening to take the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to court the commission’s “campaign of calumny and blackmail.”
Reacting to comments by EFCC’s chairman, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, that Babangida institutionalised corruption in the country, media adviser to the former head of state, Prince Kassim Sule Afegbua, said that the attacks on his boss lack objectivity.
He said that since Babangida would not want to be on collision course with anyone, he would not hesitate to seek legal redress against the EFCC.
Said Afegbua: “As much as IBB does not intend to be on collision course with anybody in the interest of the unity of our dear country, he will not hesitate any longer to seek legal redress against the EFCC to protect his hard-earned credibility and good name, which people like Nuhu Ribadu are trying to bring to ridicule.”
He said that the EFCC has not established any financial wrongdoing against Babangida, lamenting: “Yet he goes about in his usual outlandish and uncivilised manner to blackmail this leader of men, for fear that he (IBB) might join the presidential race and rule this country once again.”
Babangida’s media aide challenged the EFCC to take his boss to court if it has seen anything linking him to corruption.
“So far, in EFCC’s deliberate mischief and careless statements, it has not been able to substantiate any of the claims to the contrary, except that it rejoices in dragging IBB’s name to the mud for no justifiable reason,” Afegbua said, adding: “IBB is tired of mere heresy as a product of fertile imagination of an exuberant young man, who thinks the world is at his feet.
If the EFCC is quite desirous of helping to abate corruption, it should save us the energies of chasing shadows when it has series of challenging cases of corruption in this administration. Such deliberate diversionary tactics cannot stop Nigerians from demanding explanation from those who are presently governing them.”
He said that Babangida did much in the fight against corruption and has always insisted on accountability and transparency.
Said he: “Any reasonable Nigerian who has a sense of history would know that corruption was part of what the Babangida government inherited from his predecessors. It smacks of poor intellect for anyone to input that corruption started in Nigeria during IBB’s regime. What is the corruption profile of this present government with its professed anti-corruption stance, if one may ask?
“General Ibrahim Babangida is not God and will not want to play God, like his traducers.
Whatever he achieved during his eight years rule was a collective effort by seasoned professionals, intellectuals, technocrats and brilliant minds whose wisdom and logic combined to proffer solutions to the many problems his government inherited. Thank God, successive governments have not been able to surpass his achievements.”
“One of the therapies against corruption was the enactment of Decree 419 to tackle cases relating to Advance Fee Fraud and Other Financial Crimes. To insinuate that IBB introduced ‘419’ is to be ignorant of what Decree 419 was all about.
Afegbua said that the EFCC has ignored allegations of corruption against the Olusegun Obasanjo government.
Said Afegbua: “From all the available evidence and statistics so far, it is obvious for all to see that the present administration has taken corruption to a deepening level irrespective of the pretensions and distortions to the opposite. From PTDF through NNPC to oil blocks allocation, the nation is reeking in corruption by those grand acquisitors who are supposed to be elected representatives of the people.
“EFCC will do Nigerians a great deal of good if it could provide answers to the following: Where is the N33 trillion naira reportedly recovered from looters so far as credited to Mallam Nuhu Ribadu? What is the annual budget of the EFCC? Where is the annual audit report of the EFCC? What is EFCC doing in view of the several allegations of corruption against this present elected government?”
