Since his defection from his former party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, seems to have dropped his anti-graft garb to get soaked in the murky waters of politics with a splash of cash in Adamawa state.
Prior to his defection, Ribadu was the presidential candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), was said to have distributed millions of naira to some stakeholders in the state in a bid to soften the ground for his defection to the PDP.
At a meeting held in Abuja, which had three members of the Adamawa state PDP exco and some former members of the State House of Assembly between 1999 and 2007 in attendance, a sum of N50million were reportedly given to each attendees to return to Adamawa to mobilize PDP delegates who will support Ribadu at the party’s primaries that may hold towards the end of this month or early next month.
The meeting was spearheaded by an aide to Presidential Goodluck Jonathan who has been pushing for the defection of Ribadu, while most of the cash was reportedly supplied by Billionaire businessman, Alhaji Aliko Dangote.
With the defection done and dusted and the primary election the next hurdle, the former anti-corruption czar has further raised the financial stake in the October 11 governorship race in Adamawa state with his continued sharing of millions of naira to politicians.
Ribadu’s million naira rains is likened to a similar exercise embarked upon by the acting governor of the state, Umar Fintiri who is also engaging in the distribution of cash by awarding contracts to his cronies who will help in his bid to become the substantive governor of Adamawa State.
The acting governor few days ago Awarded N6.8B Contracts To Cronies Without Tender
He was said to have doled out another N80 million to some PDP stakeholders in Adamawa after the rousing reception he was accorded during the weekend.
Abusidiqu gathered that a prominent Fulani politician from Ganye kingdom and Walian Ganye in Adamawa state, Alhaji Kalu is said to be coordinating the distribution of the slush money.
Alarmed by the rate Ribadu has been sharing money in the state, one of the PDP governorship aspirants for the October 11 election, Dr Umar Ardo has raised the alarm, calling for a probe of the sudden wealth of Ribadu, a retired police officer.
Ardo in his alarm on Sunday said “the October 11 governorship election in Adamawa State has opened the large purse of public treasury looters who are aspiring to govern the state. For politicians whose entire lives have been in the public sector domain to dole out unbelievably large amount of money and materials to the PDP in the name of helping the party confirms only one thing – they are looters of public treasury; either directly or by leveraging on their offices to corruptly enrich themselves at the expense of public good. But the era of Adamawa people being blindfolded and deceived by money from corrupt politicians is over.”
According to him, “the fact that Ribadu changed parties and is in company of corrupt officials of the Nyako regime, is a vindication of my stand on Ribadu way back in 2007 for which I was detained in the EFCC’s cell for 4 days. For someone to donate at a swoop to the party money and materials worth over 80 million naira at his first day in the party office tells you how corrupt he is. Let him come and explain to a panel of professionals the way and manner he acquired his obscene wealth reputed to be in billions.
Some of them featured rather prominently in most of the visible atrocities and injustices acknowledged to have been perpetrated by the Obasanjo regime. They are therefore nationally seen as the personification of these injustices, crudities, double standards, dishonesties and sadisms of the regime. Even though President Obasanjo seemed to be fully satisfied with their ‘performance’, the truth is that he evidently wrecked an incalculable political damage to the image and popularity base of his administration, reducing it to a very sorry low ebb before its ouster. Its amazing how greed and avarice, and the sheer lust for power, can impel pretentious men to self-destruct!”