A former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission,
Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, on Sunday justified his defection from the opposition All
Progressives Congress to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, saying the APC
was not better than the PDP.
Ribadu, who was the 2011 presidential candidate of the defunct Action
Congress of Nigeria, forerunner of the APC, said there was no difference
between the PDP and APC, in terms of the character of the people who
constituted both parties.
The ex-EFFC chairman, who spoke through his spokesman, Mr. Abdulaziz
Abdulaziz, said this while fielding questions from one of our correspondents in
Abuja.
He said, “In Nigeria, especially in politics, you can’t say that this is
an exclusive party for the people who are thieves or this is for good people.
“It’s just like saying that all Yorubas are this or all Igbos are this.
In every group of people, there must be good people and there are bad people.
Of course, the good may be more than the bad or the bad may be more than the
good in any group.
“But there is no any party that is exclusively for the good people or
for the bad people.”
He said that his defection was not borne out of his desperation to
realise his political ambition but was based on his patriotic zeal to serve the
country and its people.
Abdulaziz said, “It is not true that he (Ribadu) was desperate to
realise his political ambition. This is because this decision was taken in the
overriding interest of serving the people.
“What matters for him is service. That is why even when he was a member
of the opposition party, when government asked him to serve the country, he
accepted the offer and he did a wonderful job that everybody hailed except
those who don’t want change in the system.
“If you are ready to serve the people, sometimes you will have to do
something that is not even palatable to yourself.”
But one of Ribadu’s close political associates in Yola told one of our
correspondents that Ribadu’s defection had more to do with his governorship
ambition and the alleged failure of the APC to give him the expected support
and compensate him for his “sacrifices” for the party.
The source said part of Ribadu’s sacrifices, which he said the APC had
failed to reciprocate, was his offer to step down for the then presidential
candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari in the
2011 election and also his role in “wooing some governors to join the APC”.
The source linked Ribadu’s defection to his unresolved grievances
against the APC, which the source made the ex-presidential candidate to succumb
to pressure mounted on him by people, including the Chairman of the PDP, Adamu
Mu’azu; Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and a Principal Secretary in
the Presidency, Hassan Tukur, to join the PDP.
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Politics