| MALLAM Nuhu Ribadu may not quit the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, afterall as indications emerged weekend, that he will only be on leave of absence during his nine-month course at the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies, NIPSS, in Kuru, Jos. In essence, he will return to the EFCC as chairman immediately after completing the senior officers course while the commission�s director of operations, Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde, will act as the anti-graft body�s boss while Ribadu is away. This, according to Sunday Vanguard sources at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, was the outcome of the anti-corruption czar�s meeting with President Umaru Musa Yar�Adua held at the nation�s seat of power on Friday.
Clarification on the controversy surrounding the directive by the inspector-general of police, IGP, Mr. Mike Okiro, to Ribadu to proceed to NIPSS on course came moments after the former chairman of the Senate Committee on Anti-Corruption, Senator Lawali Shuaibu, said the president breached the law in approving the removal of Ribadu as the EFCC chairman. Ribadu ought to have attended the NIPSS course before being promoted to the rank of assistant inspector-general of police, AIG, but the requirement was waived by the police authorities presumably at the instance of former President Olusegun Obasanjo administration. However, the incumbent IGP�s bid to apply the requirement had been interpreted in many quarters as an attempt to remove Ribadu and stiffle the anti-corruption campaign because the EFCC is currently championing the prosecution of some former public office holders for alleged corruption. Although the full details of Yar�Adua�s meeting with the EFCC boss were not available, weekend, it was learnt that the parley had in attendance Vice President Goodluck Jonathan and the chief of staff in the Presidency, Major General Abdullahi. The meeting was said to have agreed that Ribadu should proceed on the NIPSS course since it is a requirement that he ought to have attained before being promoted AIG. The decision, Sunday Vanguard learnt, was taken in compliance with government�s adherence to due process. According to the sources, the parley noted the good work that Ribadu and his team at the EFCC had done to rid the nation of corruption and conceded on the basis of that, that the anti-corruption czar could return to his beat at the commission immediately on his completion of the course. While he is away on the course, the president, it was gathered, approved that the EFCC director of operations should act as the commission�s chairman. Yar�Adua, according to the sources, also indicated that Ribadu�s reappointment, which was not approved by the Senate in compliance with the EFCC Act when former President Obasanjo made it, would be regularised before he returns to the EFCC from the course. Meanwhile, the former chairman of the Senate Committee on Anti-Corruption, weekend, criticised the president for approving the NIPSS course for the EFCC boss. To Shuaibu, who was Senate minority leader, but chairman of the Senate Committee on Anti-Corruption at the time the EFCC Act was passed by the National Assembly in 2004, the president�s approval of the EFCC boss� removal is in breach of the Act of parliament establishing the anti-graft agency. According to the senator, due process had not been followed on the move to send the outgoing chairman of the EFCC to the Kuru, Plateau State-based NIPSS in so far as the endorsement of the Senate on the matter was not secured. �Under the law establishing the EFCC and the law establishing the Nigeria Police, I don�t see anything that links the police and the EFCC personnel. Even if the EFCC personnel were deployed from the police, the police have no right to take decision on any staff of the EFCC because they are two different entities established by law,� the former chairman of the Senate Committee on Anti-Corruption told Sunday Vanguard in Abuja in an interview. Shuaibu continued: �For the IG to put Mallam Ribadu on the staff he wants to send on course is not fair and it is not right. Look at the provision of the EFCC Act that says the president shall present an address before the Senate and once two-third of the Senate supports that address, then the EFCC chairman, in this case Ribadu, is gone. �But this is a very glaring way of trying to sidetrack due process, because you are sidetracking due process. The Senate is not involved in the decision to remove a member of a commission established by law in this country and you are talking about rule of law and of due process! �It is wrong. If any member of the commission is to be removed, the Senate must be involved. Did the president do that in the case of Ribadu?� |
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Jan62008