Obasanjo attacks Atiku

Ex-president accuses his deputy of
corruption
Aide: Atiku will reply
Waziri denies Ibori link
AFTER a long break, former President Olusegun
Obasanjo and his deputy, Atiku Abubakar,
seem set to renew their hostilities.
Obasanjo is insinuating that ex-Vice President
Atiku is corrupt, saying he was investigated by
his administration following alert from the
United States.
He said Nigerians should ask Atiku why he has
not visited the United States since he left
office, if he has no case to answer.
Obasanjo, who bared his mind on why he
moved against his deputy in an interview with
the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC) magazine, Zero Tolerance,
said he could not understand why the anti-
graft commission has not taken Atiku to court.
He said he did not at any time instigate former
EFCC Chairman Nuhu Ribadu against Atiku.
Obasanjo said: “Ask Ribadu, if I ever say to
him, ‘go do this’.
“No; that is not true. We got a letter from
America in June 2006, listing a number of
people to be investigated; Atiku was one of
them and that letter went straight to the EFCC.
“It was just shown to me because they will not
be able to investigate my number two without
my saying ‘ok’. So, I said if we got this letter
from America, so be it.
“If we have agreement with FBI, Metropolitan
Police and they are helping us and we are
helping them and they write to us and say
these are the people we want you to help us
investigate, what do you think we should do?
You as EFCC, what will you do, coincidence or
no coincidence?”
He said Atiku had refused to travel to the
United States since he left office because of
alleged corruption.
He went on: “Well, I don’t know what the EFCC
has found out about him, but I don’t know if
he can go to America. Do you know? I am
asking you, do you know?
“He travels? Travels to where? To Dubai? Let
him go to America and return to Nigeria.
“Well, I don’t know what the EFCC has found
out about him, but I don’t know if he can go
to America. Do you know? I am asking you, do
you know?”
But Atiku could not be reached last night for
his reaction. He was away in China.
His Media Adviser, Mallam Garba Shehu, said:
“Turaki (Atiku) is in China and the time
difference is about eight hours. There is no
way I could reach him. You can run your story,
we will react later. Turaki will wish to
personally react,” he said.
The ex-President insisted that Ribadu was not
his attack dog.
“He is an attack dog to those people who have
run foul of the law, people like (former Vice
President) Atiku! He is an attack dog to take
down Tafa Balogun, my own Inspector General
of Police? Is that what you call attack dog?”
He denied influencing a report of the EFCC
which led to the exclusion of some politicians
from the 2007 election.
Obasanjo said: “No, no. Yes!. He brought a
report to me and said these people are
corrupt; how can I in my position receive a
report that says these people are corrupt, and
then I say ‘extol him as a governor’. Is that the
type of leader you want me to be? I will not be
that. So he brought a report; I didn’t ask him
to carry out an investigation; he even came out
and said he had found 28 governors as
corrupt.
He said EFCC under Ribadu investigated him
while in office to prove that nobody should be
below board in the fight against corruption.
He said: “I was investigated. I told the EFCC to
investigate me. I told EFCC to carry out a
clinical investigation and they did it. They also
did same with all the people on my farm. One
of them was telling me the other day how
Lamorde called him three times and took
statements from him.
“The EFCC even made sure that they did not
submit that report to me; they waited until I
left and updated their report after going round
the world and saying ‘look; this is the report’.
Nobody should be below board in the fight
against corruption.”
Obasanjo, however, became angry when he was
asked why EFCC never moved against a former
Chairman of the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA)
Chief Olabode George, until when the latter fell
out of favour with him.
He added: “No, no, no; don’t say a thing like
that; that is a stupid statement. I take very
strong exception to that and if you are from
EFCC and you say that, I think you should be
removed and I mean it.
“Ribadu brought a report and a blanket report
to us and we said, ‘look, if there is something
wrong with NPA, you don’t crucify 50 people,
go and get the leaders’ and, eventually, he got
the leaders and the leaders happen to be the
chairman, the Chief Executive who is from
Kano and they were charged and they went to
jail. And it is in the same report of Ribadu;
now, if Ribadu is no longer there and you want
to run him down, it should not be from you
and I will not run him down.”
“I will say where I think Ribadu has gone
wrong but where he is right, and he lifted that
organisation, it should be acknowledged.
“He did very well until he lost his direction
when he left. He did so well that he became a
threat even to the incoming administration;
that is what happened. He was so successful
that his success began to be a problem for
him.”
Although Obasanjo avoided rating Ribadu, he
faulted the appointment of his successor, Mrs.
Farida Waziri as the chairman of EFCC.
He alleged that Mrs. Waziri, was head-hunted
by ex-Governor James Ibori and should not
have been given the appointment. Mrs. Waziri
defended this several time, says it was false.
He added: “I don’t know how to score him. I
know that the woman they brought to replace
Ribadu (Farida Waziri) was not the right person
for that job, because I understood that one of
those who head-hunted her was James Ibori. If
James Ibori, who is now in a United Kingdom
(UK) prison for fraud, head-hunted somebody
who will fight corruption in Nigeria, then you
can understand what happened.
“ Well, go and look at her track record, go and
look at the condition or the qualification, go
and look at the type of interaction that
anybody holding that job will have with a
similar organisation elsewhere; did Waziri have
that type? What connection did she have with
FBI; what relationship did she have with
Metropolitan Police in London; what did she
know. It is not a picnic! While Ribadu was
doing it, he was doing it with all his ability and
I believe he did it well.”
He said he would reappoint Ribadu if he has
the opportunity.
“Yes, I will reappoint Mallam Ribadu and I will
not dismiss him the way he was dismissed
from EFCC and one thing I will tell him, I will
advise him not to go and hobnob with people
he had declared as corrupt. Hobnobbing with
such people does not do much credit to his
image.”
Responding to a question, Obasanjo explained
why he had been critical of the Federal
Government’s fight against corruption.
He said political will is required to fight
corruption in Nigeria.
But when asked whether the nation still has
the political will, the ex-President simply
responded: “Go and ask your president, not
me.
“Political will is the courage, ability, the
audacity to do what is right and most of what
is right will not be pleasant.”
He added: “I feel concerned about Nigeria and
I will never stop feeling concerned and that is
why occasionally I speak up.
“Even now, I am speaking up to say that all of
you in EFCC, there are areas you should be
ashamed of yourselves. If you take an
organisation which took Nigeria from level 2 to
level 43 and then it start coming down to level
34 then something is wrong. You don’t come
and blame that on me; you don’t come and ask
me that.”