Why I accepted Jonathan’s job offer, by Ribadu

[DT]

It's a booby trap — ACN

Former EFCC chairman Nuhu Ribadu yesterday said he accepted the Federal Government's offer to be chairman of a task force on oil revenue because he considered it a national call to service. Ribadu, who ran for president on the platform of main opposition party ACN last year, said he would take the job so as to continue investing his talents and capabilities in fighting corruption.

"It is all about the community, and it is sometimes bigger than our personal egos," he said in a statement yesterday.

But the Action Congress of Nigeria said Ribadu accepted the appointment in his personal capacity as the party was sticking to its position of not serving in President Jonathan's PDP-led government.

Petroleum Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke on Tuesday named Ribadu as chairman of a 21-man Petroleum Revenue Special Task Force, leading to debates especially in the social media on whether he should accept the appointment.

In his statement yesterday, Ribadu said, "Given my recent political pedigree, many inquirers naturally wanted to understand what was happening, and whether it was true that I was consulted and whether I would accept the offer.

"The history of my life is a history of public service, and if we cast an honest look to the recent protests in the wake of the oil subsidy removal, it will be clear to all that the biggest single victory Nigerians scored was to put the question of corruption squarely back on the top of our national policy agenda.

"Regardless of our affiliations, our differences, and our engagements, it is at least safe to say that we have a national consensus on the deadly impact of corruption on our march to greatness, and on the capacity of our people, particularly the youth, to earn a decent, promising, life.

"If we would effectively isolate and defeat this scourge therefore, we must all see it as a preeminent national security threat. We must see it as a war within our borders, a war that has assumed a systemic and endemic character, but to which all must now urgently enlist with our different capacities, or accept to all go down with the ship.

"At this point in my life, it is also easy to answer the honest question if it is inappropriate to invest my modest talents and capabilities to my country what I have readily offered many foreign communities, from sister nations in Africa to far flung places like Afghanistan. This, if nothing, makes my decision very personal, freeing all affiliations [social and political] of complicity, but investing the decision also with the unique character that when people reach evaluations in favour of their larger communities, it doesn't necessarily blemish their moral identity.

"This therefore is a national call. In answering it, I go back to the template of my own parents who taught me that honest public service is the greatest asset a person can offer his community. It was the same lesson I learnt from his biographical example when my own father returned home as a federal legislator in Lagos to take job as a local council official in Yola—it is all about the community, and it is sometimes bigger than our personal egos."

But spokesman for ACN Lai Mohammed in a statement said the party had a "long-standing position barring members of the party from accepting appointments from the PDP-led Federal Government.... Any member of our party who takes such an appointment does so in his personal capacity."

Mohammed said Ribadu's appointment amounted to poaching of credible personalities from the opposition and "smacks of underhand tactics aimed at decimating the opposition."

"There is also the possibility that booby traps will be deliberately set for such credible personalities to guarantee their failure in their stated assignment, after which they will be ridiculed and dumped," Mohammed said.

He said the party was not sure whether the appointment was done in good faith or was merely aimed at getting "credible people" to launder the government's image.

Mohammed said, however, that as a leading opposition party ACN will "continue to play its role in ensuring good governance and contributing to nation building through its regular constructive criticisms which, hitherto and unfortunately so, have fallen on deaf ears."

Daily Trust learnt that Ribadu is at present in Afghanistan undertaking a United Nations job.

 

DailyTrust