How Nwabueze, Aondoakaa, Waziri Frustrated Fight Against Corruption – Ribadu

Former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Nuhu Ribadu has named Prof. Ben Nwabueze (SAN), Michael Aondoakaa and Mrs. Farida Waziri as part of some prominent Nigerians he said tried their best to frustrate the nation’s fight against corruption.

According to Premium Times, Ribadu made the revelation on Thursday when he presented the lead paper at the 2016 Annual Lecture organised by the Law Chambers of Joe Kyari Gadzama in Abuja.
Speaking under the theme “Corruption and the Nigerian Economy: Lawyers as Change Agents”, Ribadu named the three Nigerians as the people who undermined the country’s efforts to fight against the cancer of corruption.

Ribadu said: “I still recall with amazement and shock how some very senior lawyers made it a duty upon themselves to bring down the EFCC and stop the work we were doing. Many of them, like Prof. Ben Nwabueze, SAN, teamed up with politicians to wage a very serious propaganda to discredit the work we were doing.”

He also said Mr. Nwabueze personally went to court on many occasions to challenge the powers of the EFCC to fight corruption.

“One thing that also did a serious damage to the war against corruption was the active connivance of some senior lawyers who represented the governors we charged to courts after the 2007 election,” he said.

Mr. Ribadu, a lawyer and former police officer, also said he was shocked that some lawyers who found themselves in government also worked against the fight against corruption.

“Take the case of Mr. Michael Aondoakaa, whose most cardinal agenda as the AGF seemed to be destroying EFCC by every means possible and frustrating all the cases.

“In that regard he attempted to take over the prosecutorial powers of the commission, which would have rendered the EFCC into a toothless bulldog. But of course we resisted,” he said.

He also said that Mr. Aondoakaa later found a partner in Farida Waziri when she was appointed as the chairman of the EFCC to replace Mr. Ribadu.

Mr. Ribadu said Mrs Waziri “inflicted serious damages on the EFCC from which the commission is still struggling to recover”.

He said corrupt practices that were unheard of became widespread in the Commission and outside lawyers were brought in to handle very important cases that sometimes were turned into avenues of making money.

One of such cases, he said, was the Halliburton scandal.

Mr. Ribadu also listed some Nigerian lawyers that he said contributed immensely to the fight against corruption in the country.

According to him, such Nigerians include the late Gani Fawehinmi, Femi Falana, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Mr. Tayo Oyetibo, Mr. Rotimi Jacobs, Chief Kanu Agabi, SAN,” he said.