AFTER the first Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu was sacked by former President Umaru Y’aradua of blessed memory, he delivered a lecture on corruption where he was a special guest outside the shores of Nigeria.
In the lecture, Ribadu has this to say in a viral video monitored by SOJ WORLDWIDE, it was transcribed below on how he risked his life fighting corruption in Nigeria and how he prosecuted three major looters in Nigeria.
“Let me put a question first
How many of you are here? How many of us and please raise your hand if you have received a letter from a Nigerian you have never met promising you love claiming to be the governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
So on and so forth how many of you here? I also have received it I received a letter from Nuhu ribadu to my own email asking me to give the details of my own account that I have some money and that I was looking for someone to keep it for me, well they are from the ‘conmen’, we call it Advanced Fee Fraud and in Nigeria it is known as 419, name after the criminal code, code that creating Advanced Fee Fraud as an offense, okay!
Do you know that every year $60 billion leave Africa illegally this is a report from Economic Commission for Africa.
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One money is going this way the other money is going the other way poor Africa, billions going out, well as you can see I’m a Nigerian, I’m from this paradoxical continent.
Where today, our most notorious exports is stolen money, stolen money. I was also at the fore front of effort to change this narrative in 2003, the then President of Nigeria, President Olusegun Obasanjo called me and handed me a piece of paper appointing me the First Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
It was a pleasure by the International Community that we must have that Commission the world was getting fed up with us no one knew about the Commission, not the president, not the parliament, nobody.
It was just a piece of paper that was given to me no money no office in four years I build that institution into one of the most, if not the most successful and formidable anti-corruption agency not just in Africa but in the world.
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Yes, we worked hard we build networks across the world we went to look for support we covered billions we convicted hundreds of people we almost change the entire fight against corruption in Nigeria.
How did I do it? I want to share it with you, I do intend to give a story of three cases out of the hundreds we handled, the three will probably explain the entire work that we did, the frustration, the difficulties and of course some of the success stories.
The first one will be a case of a Nigerian stealing in Nigeria and stealing from foreign countries that I told you earlier, the second case will be a gang of foreigners stealing from Nigeria, corruption Nigeria, the last one will be a case of Nigeria politician stealing from his own people and often taken the money out, taken it to development world.
The first case Emmanuel Nwude one of the most successful 419 fraudsters, he duped a Brazilian Bank about $254 million dollars successfully the bank collapsed, the manger died.
I personally arrested Emmanuel Nwude and as usual a fraudster like him wanted to compromise me, to bribe me, he called me, sir, what is your problem?
This money belong to the white people they are rich let’s share he will take half and give us half that’s the end of the story.
People like him get away with this kind of behavior of course I refused I charge him to court I literally took everything from him, money in and outside Nigeria, properties in and outside Nigeria, in one bank I seized 10 million worth of his own shares, I got him convicted.
I returned the money to the victims, the Brazilian, this is me returning the money but not only that I return to others as well, this is me going to China, Hong Kong, to return. We return millions of dollars to victims across the world.”
This is justices at work. But the case of Emmanuel Nwude made us to be more determined to clean out, to sanitize, it was terrible.
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People like him compromise our law enforcement, compromise our banking system. In the course of his own case we stumbled into an account, an account with millions of dollars belonging to someone very close to him, very close, guess who it is? My boss the Chief Law Officer, the Inspector General of Police (IGP Tafa Balogun) in Nigeria.
A tough job, I arrested him. I charge him to court, I recovered everything from him, I return it, I got him convicted, he served a jail term. But not only him. Even the banking system during the period that we worked in less than two months I arrested about 49 Chief Executives of banks in Nigeria.
Many of them are friends, personal friends, it was a tough job but fighting corruption is a war, and if you are in a war you must go for the big target, get a suitable candidate for you to make a maximum impart that’s what we did and it brought a change we were fed up, our country was in a mess they destroyed the name and image of our country, I needed to do that.
The second case is the ‘Harley Button’ scandal I’m sure some of you might have heard of that, Harley Button is my own case as well I was the one I refused to allow you to die.
It’s a case of four companies, global companies, multinational companies, from the US, France, Italy, and Japan, coming together and they got a contract of about 6 billion to build a Natural Gas Project in Nigeria.
In the course of it they decided to bribe the Nigerian government officials about a hundred and eighty two million dollars with evidence.
I first got a hint of this case in France. I went back home I try to investigate the case but it was so difficult or probably impossible because the companies were not there in Nigeria. They didn’t have account, there are no records, none of the persons were inside Nigeria they all left .
I had to come back. I rushed back to Paris. I went to France many times. I put on a letter of request for about a year, I was trying to get the French authorities to help us. At the end, the investigation magistrate told me the letter that I wrote about a year ago they couldn’t get anyone to translate it from English to French language.
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I knew that then it was a hopeless case. I move to Italy. In Italy I had a friend called Fabio. Fabio was one of the big prosecutors but they were extremely busy it was the days of Balesconi.
Fabio told me they wanted to ask of my own support because of they were involved, then I thought of going to Japan.
Japan is extremely far but I just know I might also end up in the trap of this translation because I do not speak Japanese language. I decided to go to Washington D.C at least, the problem of translation won’t be there.
But wait a minute, there was a problem, as at that time the Vice President of American was Dick Cheney. Board member of ‘Harley Button’. But to my pleasant surprise the DOJ, the Department of Justices in US took the case, they investigated.
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They brought the people to justices they place a fine of over 1.5 billion dollars against the company the biggest for a corporate corruption in the world. I also was here in Berlin I came and reported Siemens here.
And also Bill Finger, Julius Berger, I couldn’t get the support I came here I met with BKK that’s the investigating authority here I tried if they could take my own case Siemens. Siemens was involved in corruption in Nigeria as well as Julius Berger, Bill Finger, I couldn’t get support as well.
I decided to get to Washington D.C I went back and they took the case. The three cases, the US government make over 3 billion dollars in term of fine against the said companies.
But the sad part of it is that in my own country where the criminal activity took place not a single individual was made to face justices especially after to leave my own position not only that we did not make a dollar out of that money that was made by the US authorities.
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The third case, is the case of a Nigerian politician stealing from his own people and like I said often taken the money out.
James Ibori was in the UK he got convicted twice for stealing in the 90’s.
He found himself back in Nigeria he was elected and became the Governor of Delta State, one of the richest oil producing state.
He was a governor for eight years, we started investigating him just like other politicians. We and also the UK authorities were also investigating him.
We found out that James took at least half of the money that the state earned within the period that he was the governor and that state must have earned over a billion dollars. While I was investigating him of course as usual like all of them. James approach me with 15 million dollars in cash to stop his own investigation. I called my own people because it was a massive bag two people will not be able to take it. We took the money and lodge into Central Bank of Nigeria. I arrested him after that, I charge him to court.
I presented the money as evidence before the court of law just then James Ibori friend became President of Nigeria.
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They decided to go after me, they sent me to a school. The school that I was a teacher before, I was asked to go and become a student.
They attempted on my life, they tried to kill me but as God will have it Umaru and things started falling apart for James. James was arrested in Dubai, taken back to the UK he was arrested and convicted.
Today James is serving a jail term in UK prison. Thanks to our efforts and thanks to what I called globalized justices. The case of James Ibori is a clean example of how corruption fights back nobody fight in stages.
First they will try to compromise, give you the money if you want, if you refuse, then you will be a target of destruction.
It happen to me but I’m grateful I survived, I thank God we have been able to achieve something.
Today, Nigeria is one country in terms of return of stolen money. We succeed in getting our money back more than any other country in the world. Switzerland alone return over a billion dollars to Nigeria. Thanks to the work we did.
Today UK established a Special Unit within which they have a special oversea anti-corruption and that is making a massive success.
I want to ask every other country to do the same-thing together I believe we will be able to make it possible for any stolen money to stay anywhere in the world and also corrupt people will not have a place to hide it.
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It make sense to fight corruption. Corruption is a monster. I believe my mind set then help us to fight corruption and if we are successful we do not need hands out again we will take care of ourselves and you will be happy with us.
And probably we will not see those nasty things that you see everyday, people died in trying to move from one continent to another.
It is sad, it is tragic, we if take care of ourselves we will not see this kind of things. We work hard to make sure from our own side we have done it.
I think all of us do have a role to play in this, if we come together we will make it. Corruption is the monster.
A bullet was directed to my face It is probably the most dangerous work but I most tell you it is worth it. I asked all of us to stand up and fight corruption it is a monster that most be fought but I want to assure you that this is one fight, this is one war, that is worth fight. Thank you very much, thank you.”
Mallam Nuhu Ribadu is the incumbent National Security Adviser (NSA) to President Bola Ahmed Tibubu.
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