Ribadu to be dismissed from Nigerian police force

THE Police Force Disciplinary Committee which spent the whole of last Thursday in vain waiting for the former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Malam Nuhu Ribadu, may have recommended his dismissal from the police force.

Credible sources told the Nigerian Tribune that as of Monday evening, the committee was compiling its report which is to be submitted to the Inspector General of Police, Mike Okiro, tomorrow.

It was also gathered that Okiro is expected to scrutinise the report and add his own comments before submitting to the Police Service Commission on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Some Niger Deltans are said to have lodged a complaint with the Inspector General of Police over the oil block allegedly allocated to Nuhu Ribadu.

Sources revealed that the said oil block was allegedly a parting gift to Ribadu for allegedly checkmating the activities of the opponents of Obasanjo’s third term bid.

The Niger Deltans were said to be threatening to obstruct oil production if the allocation was not cancelled. Last Thursday, Ribadu was to face the disciplinary panel for, among other things, suing the Inspector-General of Police over his demotion from Assistant Inspector–General of Police (AIG) to Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) and also for his disobedience for not answering the query issued to him by Okiro.

However, DIG Ogbonnaya Onovo and his committee members waited for the whole day at the Police Officers Mess, Kaduna, venue of the sitting without seeing Ribadu.

Although no official reason was given for Ribadu’s absence, a source told newsmen that the former EFCC chairman would not honour the invitation to attend the panel. He was among 105 police officers slated to be tried by the panel for various disciplinary cases.

Ribadu was appointed by former President Olusegun Obasanjo as the chairman of the EFCC in 2003 and reappointed in 2007, as well as promoting him to the position of Assistant Inspector General of Police.

Reacting to the development, Chairman of Conference of Nigerians Political Parties (CNPP), Alhaji Balarabe Musa, said the Yar’Adua’s government had demonstrated that it was not serious about fighting corruption.

Musa said Ribadu was all along being persecuted in order to enable the authorities get rid of evidence in possession of the EFCC against known corrupt ex-government officials.

Nigerians, he said, should not be taken aback if Ribadu was eventually retired of his job, stressing that all the government wanted to prove was that the anti-corruption war is dead in Nigeria.

He said, “The government has gone too far in persecuting Ribadu. If they remove him from office now, nobody should be surprised because we have had enough of their pretenses about fighting corruption.”

A Lagos lawyer, Mr. Fred Agbaje, said the police had the power to discipline Ribadu if he contravened the regulation of police. “This is because Ribadu is like any other civil servant in the country who must obey the rules of civil service. But my fear is that this guy has already sued the police. Now that the case is in court, I doubt if the police or the Federal Government can sack him,” he said.

Lagos lawyer, Festus Keyamo, has advised Ribadu to resign from the police first and then fight them back if it was true that he had been recommended for dismissal.

According to him, “he should first of all resign from the police and fight them, he should join people like us, it will not be possible for him to remain within that organisation and fight the system.”

He further stated that “there should be no sentiment about this issue. If it is true that he has been recommended for dismissal, he has to quit when the ovation is loudest, he should not be intimidated, he should should not disobey those who asked him to go, he comply with the rules and regulations of the police force, he has to obey them since he is still within that organisation.”