Ribadu: Why I accepted to serve

Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and presidential candidate of Action Congress of Nigeria has explained why he accepted the offer to serve in the President Goodluck Jonathan led administration.

The former anti-graft chief was on Tuesday appointed by the minister of petroleum as the Chairman of a 17-member petroleum revenue special task force saddled with the job of ensuring stoppage of revenue leakage from the industry where Nigeria earns over 90 per cent of it revenue.

There have been raging controversies over whether Ribadu should accept the job or not, with many wondering if the former presidential candidate was contacted before his name was announced.
Earlier today, ACN, the party on which platform contested the presidency against President Jonathan in the April 2011 general elections in a press release said it knew nothing about the appointment.
But Mallam Ribadu in a statement this evening said his acceptance of the appointment is in tune with his commitment to the war against corruption.
Ribadu therefore said he agreed to serve to enable him “invest my modest talents and capacities to my country what I have readily offered many foreign communities, from sister nations in Africa to far flung places like Afghanistan.

While describing his new appointment as a national call, the former EFCC Chief said “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—its all about the community, and it is sometimes bigger than our personal egos.”
The former EFCC boss said Nigerians must now see “corruption as a pre-eminent national security threat and a war which has assumed a systemic and endemic character”, which we must all enlist our different capabilities to combat or go down with the ship.

“The history of my life is a history of public service, and if we cast a honest gaze back 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,” said the former EFCC boss.
“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.
“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”, Ribadu concluded. (PM NEWS)