Nuhu Ribadu

[Nick de Cusa]

En ce début d'année, un petit rappel que les héros existent. Pour attaquer de front les big men au Nigeria, M. Ribadu doit en avoir des en acier trempé. Pour l'instant, ils essaient de l'éliminer en douceur. J'espère qu'ils n'iront pas plus loin.

Nigeria

The good, the bad and the president

Jan 3rd 2008 | ABUJA

From The Economist print edition

A doughty fighter of corruption is sent away for re-education

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NIGERIANS are painfully aware of how much corruption has cost their country—over $400 billion, according to official estimates. That is the equivalent of about two-thirds of all the aid given to the whole of Africa since the 1960s, and more than anything else explains why most people in this oil-rich country still live in poverty.

Yet in recent years the government had started a belated fight against corruption. And if one man has become the symbol of that campaign it is the crusading young head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nuhu Ribadu. Since 2003, Mr Ribadu has attained almost mythic status among his countrymen by charging and prosecuting the politicians, and particularly the state governors, who are responsible for most of the fraud and looting of public funds. For the first time, he gave Nigerians hope that their country could actually be different. So the news on December 27th that Mr Ribadu is being forced to resign on a technicality has caused deep dismay among his supporters. It is also very worrying for the future of Africa's most populous country.

In short, Mr Ribadu finally got too close to the top. His anti-corruption agency, once accused of prosecuting only the government's political foes, has under the new president, Umaru Yar'Adua, been pursuing the former state governors who lost their immunity from prosecution after leaving office last May. He had some big successes. The EFCC has arrested seven governors, including two of the most notorious, Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State and James Ibori of Delta State, both of whom spent Christmas in prison. Another round of arrests was planned for early January.

The prosecution of Mr Ibori was the boldest. The former governor of the oil-rich Delta State received a salary of less than $25,000 a year. Last August a court in London ordered a freeze on $35m of his worldwide assets. Despite this, he was thought to be untouchable in Nigeria because of his political connections. He is a prominent leader of the ruling People's Democratic Party and was a major funder of Mr Yar'Adua's election campaign. So when Mr Ibori was arrested on December 12th many Nigerians gasped—and then cheered. Among other charges against him was an attempted $15m bribe of the EFCC to drop the case against him. “He didn't realise that it was being recorded,” said a commission official.

It was also the arrest of Mr Ibori, however, that tipped the scales against Mr Ribadu. Two weeks later came the announcement that Mr Ribadu would have to resign to attend a one-year course of study at the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies in Jos. Technically, a man of Mr Ribadu's senior rank has to have done this as part of his qualifications; the head of the police said that the “transfer” was only to make Mr Ribadu “a better officer”. In fact, Mr Ribadu could probably teach the course himself; the former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, did not insist on it. In any case, few are in any doubt as to the real reason for Mr Ribadu's sudden obligation to go back to school. Nervous former state governors pressured—and blackmailed—Mr Yar'Adua into letting the police chief sack Mr Ribadu to spare them any more prosecutions.

For, right now, Mr Yar'Adua needs all the political support he can get. The president is soon to face a legal challenge to his own election in a tribunal. He cannot afford to lose friends—and the ex-governors are among the strongest in his People's Democratic Party. They also have the president's ear because several of them, not least Mr Ibori, could probably produce damning evidence of the widespread election rigging that brought the president to office.

Yet sidelining the head of the EFCC in this way is terrible news for Nigeria. The commission is popular—the second most trusted institution in the country, according to a 2007 poll. The agency's more than 200 convictions over four years have resurrected international confidence in the country. With a soaring stockmarket, investors have poured into Nigeria in the hope that the country was at last getting on top of its problems, such as corruption. Now some of that progress is at risk.

For Mr Ribadu, there may still be a way out. He could resign. Or he could refuse to go until the orders come directly from the president. That would leave room for Mr Yar'Adua to back down, and save himself as well. But if Mr Ribadu is forced out, as Chris Albin-Lackey of Human Rights Watch, a lobby group, puts it, “the message is unmistakable. The credibility of the EFCC and the president, someone who is genuinely interested in fighting corruption, will be destroyed.”