Ribadu had said at a lecture in Zaria last Saturday that Nigeria under Jonathan’s rule is “a sinking ship in which the yearnings of the masses are neglected by a tyrannical leadership.” No one expected the president or his aides to be flattered by that description of his rule coming from the nation’s former top […]
Of hypocrites and desperados
Ribadu had said at a lecture in Zaria last Saturday that Nigeria under Jonathan’s rule is “a sinking ship in which the yearnings of the masses are neglected by a tyrannical leadership.” No one expected the president or his aides to be flattered by that description of his rule coming from the nation’s former top anti-corruption czar. Still, Abati’s response must have left the first time visitor to Nigeria gaping with amazement. The presidential spokesman responded by describing Ribadu as “a political prostitute and an ethically challenged hypocrite.” Phew!
Abati did not stop there. He said Nuhu Ribadu “resorted to shameless wolf-crying, the peddling of arrant falsehood and the denigration of the elected government of his fatherland in furtherance of his selfish quest for national political relevance.” Ribadu, Abati also said, “has now taken to political prostitution and developed a penchant for irresponsible and reckless utterances.” What did Ribadu say in response? That Abati’s statement is “typical of his increasingly desperate personality that exposed him as a fraud of a presidential spokesman who does not have the simplest level of media literacy.” Phew! And also that Abati “stands on crooked crutches of rehashed falsehoods fabricated by corrupt politicians prosecuted by Malam Nuhu Ribadu in his desperate attempt to hold on to his job.” Abati also said Ribadu was “an ingrate” because the Jonathan regime helped his rehabilitation when he returned from self-imposed exile during the Yar’adua years, but Ribadu fired back that he was betrayed by the regime when his selfless report of the Petroleum Revenue Task Force was thrown away.
Which reminds me. Last year, when Jonathan thought he had a terrible problem on his hands with billions of naira in oil revenue being stolen at all levels, he turned to Ribadu to head a task force. Didn’t he know at the time that Ribadu was a political prostitute? As for Ribadu, who accepted the task and turned in a report before Mr. Steve Oronsaye tried to torpedo it on the day it was handed over, didn’t he know that the regime was a sinking ship when he agreed to serve it? Look, we don’t want close friends to take us for a ride after quarrelling over God knows what.
Foxes to probe chicken theft?
The Federal Government appointed a panel on Monday evening [I have since lost count of the number of panels that this government has set up in the last three years] to address a serious problem: frequent collapse of the national electricity system. The government wants to know the “underlying reasons for the frequent trips in the nation’s electricity transmission and distribution networks.” It wants to know within two weeks the specific reasons for all the system collapses that have occurred since January this year and identify possible human related lapses.
So who will conduct this probe and identify the human agents that were responsible for system collapses? The very people who could be indicted! The 11-man panel inaugurated by Power Minister Professor Chinedu Nebo is to be led by a former director in the same ministry, Fatai Olapade. Other members include chairman of the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission Sam Amadi; chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Power Beks Dagogo-Jack; CEO of Transmission Company of Nigeria Don Priestman and managing director of Niger Delta Power Holding Company of Nigeria James Olotu. Also on the panel are director of power in the Power Ministry Sanusi Garba, CEO of Egbin Power Plant Mike Uzoigwe, CEO of Ikeja Distribution Company Chris Akamnonu and vice president of International Commission for Large Dams Omo Ekpo.
Minister, you want to probe frequent thefts from the chicken farm and you appointed a panel chaired by the fox and made up of the jackal, hawk, eagle and the alley cat? Prof, you must be joking!
