Former Delta State governor, Chief James Ibori, has described as horrible, revolting, nasty and totally false, the claim by Mr. Nuhu Ribadu, former Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Chairman in newspapers that he (Ibori) approached Ribadu with $15 million to stop his investigation.
In a statement, Mr. Tony Eluemunor, media aide to Chief Ibori, said: “Ibori’s first reaction was to once again overlook the wild claim as Ribadu appears to be back at his game. As the Senate and some security agencies appear to be asking questions about some unwholesome events at the EFCC, including the mismanagement and criminal diversion of funds from the sale of confiscated property into personal pockets, Ribadu may have a need to attempt to burnish his fading image, fearing the investigations may ask questions about events during his tenure. But he should be told that lying against even an enemy, just to gain some unearned applause and perhaps fence off some approaching investigation and image disaster, must have a limit.
“Ribadu claimed in the stories that ‘Ibori approached me with $15 million to stop his investigation. I called my people because the money was in big bags, which two people could not carry and we deposited it in the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, as evidence against him.’
“This nonsensical statement has remained in the public domain only because some people have suspended their sense of disbelief and condemned themselves to every hogwash that Ribadu invents in the attempt to spruce himself up in borrowed plums.
“It is on record that Ribadu has made at least five statements over this same claim, and no single one agreed with the other. Also, both Ibrahim Lamorde (the immediate past EFCC Chairman) and one James Garba, a CBN staff then seconded to the EFCC, made police statements which contradicted Ribadu’s. Even Senator Andy Uba said in a statement that EFCC collected the said money from his house.
“Nigerians should know that it was the money from Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s third term tenure elongation bid that was dressed up as a bribe just to demonize Ibori. Some $5 billion were employed to bribe the national and state legislatures to support the accursed project, with certain individuals receiving from N50 to N200 million.
“The attempt to shoot Ibori down began in 2003, when some Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, governors were opposed to Obasanjo’s second term bid. That money, sourced from wherever, was used against Ibori, as part of that long-time bring Ibori down project. We challenge any newspaper or magazine to check all the statements on this bribery allegation and see how each of them, including Ribadu’s five different statements, howls to Ribadu himself: “you are a damned liar.”
