A
former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mallam
Nuhu Ribadu, has warned that the refusal of President Goodluck Jonathan
to grant amnesty to terror group, Boko Haram, can plunge the country
into another civil war.
Ribadu, who was the presidential candidate for the Action Congress of Nigeria in the 2011 presidential election, spoke on Liberty FM in Kaduna on Saturday.
He
urged the President to grant amnesty to the violent Islamist sect
for peace to return to the country, saying he (Jonathan) should not
claim that the sect members were ghosts.
He
argued that with the way things were happening in the country, if
nothing was done, “Nigerians will lose Nigeria to a civil war.”
Advising
Nigerians against voting for a leader they can not trust, he told
Jonathan to “hearken to the voice of the people.”
Ribadu
said, “Jonathan was wrong to have said he will not grant amnesty to
Boko Haram; he should not fail to protect the people and when people
call saying we are tired, we are down; even if it means to dialogue and
have an solution to the whole process, he should opt for such.
“You
cannot say they are faceless because faceless people do not do things
like this. Faceless people cannot be responsible and daily you see them
on Facebook. Faceless people cannot be in your custody; ghosts
cannot be people that are in the community, people who at a point wanted
to dialogue.”
The
former EFCC chairman added that a war could be averted “if we come
together forgetting about sentiments, about differences and working
towards unity and saving the resources of this country because it is
only through that that we will be able to achieve peace.”
Ribadu
added that the presidential pardon granted former Bayelsa State
Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha and others showed that Jonathan was
insensitive to the plight of the Nigerian masses.
According
to him, it was worrisome for a government that knew nothing about the
case to pardon the former governor who was convicted for looting
public funds. He argued that the action was a big setback for the
fight against corruption in the country.
He
said, “The pardon granted Alamieyeseigha and Shettima Bulama by the
President is a tragic development. A very unfair action against
Nigerians because corruption is our biggest problem and any step taken
against the direction of reversing it is a negative development in our
own country.
“Our
leaders are very insensitive to the ordinary people and very unfair to
Nigeria. If you take selfish interest before the interest of the people,
personally, as a person who did the work of fighting corruption, they
were my own cases and they were extremely very important to me.
“They
were the first set of convictions that we recorded and they were
significant because they were the first set of cases of convictions in
Nigeria since independence. We have never had a governor or a Chief
Executive Officer of a bank being convicted for a crime.”
Meanwhile,
a coalition of Northern civil society groups, led by Mallam Shehu
Sani, also faulted the pardon granted Alamieyeseigha, saying it had
made nonsense of the anti-corruption crusade of the Federal Government.
The
coalition argued that the pardon granted the late Gen. Shehu
Yar’Adua, former Chief of General Staff , Gen. Oladipo Diya and the late
Gen.Abdulkareem Adisa was just to give creditability to the exercise.
It
said, “What we know very well is that pardon for Alamieyeseigha is
unpopular, and President Jonathan has demonstrated over the years to
be rewarding corruption and aiding and abetting it.”
Punch Nigeria
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