Immanuel James: In Defence of Nuhu Ribadu
In my tiny village in Imo State, after the Christmas Eve Mass of December 24, 2003, a minor incident happened – one that perfectly illustrates Mallam Nuhu Ribadu’s current travails. As church members trooped home after the midnight service, they encountered a famous drunkard who was wobbling along the road, drunk. “Look at them!”, he snorted, “They have gone to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ! Three months from now…by Good Friday…they’re still the same people to shout, ‘Crucify Him! Crucify Him!’ “.
The chant for Ribadu’s crucifixion,
years after he had been celebrated as one of Nigeria’s finest public
servants, should not surprise anyone who understands the character of
public opinion in this country.
At a time when Nigeria had become a huge
compost of graft, Ribadu arrived with unprecedented vigour. He
instituted structures of Financial Intelligence in the EFCC, such that
even “Yahoo-Yahoo” urchins were traced to their houses and entrapped
like rats. He retrieved staggering sums of money to the nation’s
coffers. He opened our eyes to the enormity of the industry of executive
thieving, and embarked on an athletic pursuit of fleeing funds, barring
threats to his life. Heads began to roll. Tafa Balogun. Diepreye
Alamieyeseigha. Well
over 270 convictions were recorded, though many
other prominent cases were stalled by judicial and political intringues.
Nigeria earned the right to contribute
to global discussions on anti-corruption. The anti-corruption war was
not probably as successful as we would have liked, but work had at least
begun, because that man happened to this nation. Nuhu Ribadu became the
symbol of a new patriotism especially for young Nigerians, a patriotism
too brave to be true, too firm to be compromised. The media sang, the
masses gyrated, the thieves kicked, all to the rhythm of a hopeful
nation.
There was a tinge of cynicism, however.
Analysts, critics, pundits, and all other members of the theory
department seized the narrative: he is prosecuting only members of the
opposition party, they retorted; well he has sent a few PDP thieves to
jail but those ones are Obasanjo’s enemies; ok, why has he not probed
Obasanjo, is that one clean? Typically Nigerian, the discourse became
mired in petty, irrational logic.
Corruption acquired demographics, from
gender to political party to ethnicity. A new phrase – ‘politically
motivated’ – made its entry into our political lexicon. That an indicted
thief was guilty of theft was immaterial, so long as somewhere within
the space for logic, point could be made that prosecution was influenced
by gender, ethnicity, or partisanship. Ribadu was accused of selective
prosecution. Funnily enough, the same people that wielded that
accusation alleged that he was removed because he stepped on the toes of
people in government. If he was selective, how come he stepped on toes?
In the past week, just like my village
drunkard had predicted, Ribadu, again, has become a candidate for the
cross. Many Nigerians, operating only the left part of their memories,
have taken to several media, cursing, kicking. For defecting to the PDP
from the APC, Ribadu, they insist, has stripped himself of whatever
integrity he had to begin with. They have excavated old excerpts of
interviews where he swore never to join the PDP. Somewhere in the heap
of accusations is that sanctimonious mantra – he lacks consistency. One
understands that a certain sense of political heartbreak can warrant
such a wholesale desecration of a rather glorious individual; one
understands also that the human memory, especially when it is lodged in a
Nigerian political entity, is heightened in the recollection of
‘wrongs’.
Consistency. The word appears sexy
enough for the stamp of eternal good. We often love those stories, of
men who presented their throats rather than give up an ideal; of
individuals who starved to death just so that they might make their
points. Consistency is an exciting concept in legends, politics,
religion, love, etc.
But it is not an absolute good,
consistency. The human experience is a dynamic process. Society. Life.
Circumstances. They evolve. They continue to manifest new dimensions in a
manner that makes the ever-consistent individual become unfit for
progress. That individual who does not review himself upon the encounter
of new circumstances, who clings tenaciously to his established
tradition, while other factors of his environment have moved, is to be
pitied, not celebrated. He merely exists; he doesn’t live. Living is an
evolutionary phenomenon. Existence is not.
Ribadu’s defection to the PDP is a
political decision, one that should be examined strictly in that
context. It is the outcome of political permutations in the interest of
his legitimate pursuit of power. Let’s assume, perhaps rightly so, that
the PDP is the party to beat in the guber race in his State.
Then, does it make sense for him to remain in a tottering opposition and
let a less-vibrant character in the PDP gain that power?
The APC, the opposition party upon which
many Nigerians had anchored their hopes for a new paradigm, has proven
to be a hoax. Bedeviled by internal contradictions, by which it
manifests both progressive and regressive politics – as if by
compensation, the party appears to be on its way back to where it came
from: Action Congress. Just months to the presidential election, a major
opposition party has not even produced a presidential candidate. It
does appear that so long as the South-West is under lock and key against
external incursion, the chief architect of that party is satisfied. I
could bet my upper teeth that the APC will be relegated to South-West
relevance in the coming elections. I want to be wrong.
It is uncharitable for Nigerians to
lampoon Nuhu Ribadu. Among the spoilers of his integrity are people who
steal petty sums in their clubs and offices, yet they have the
effrontery to condemn a man who refused to accept billions and shut up.
In the EFCC, he made his mark: being the pioneer chairman of that body,
there was none whom he could emulate – and there has been none to
emulate him! Ribadu may not be a saint, but he belongs in the club of
patriots who have made this nation specially
proud.
proud.
We cannot continue to discourage
patriotism in our youth by undermining the heroism of those who show the
way. Let us give him the benefit of the doubt as he tries working
within the same system he had sought to sanitize from the outside.
Photo Credit: newtelegraphonline.com
