Farida Waziri
A former chairperson of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on Saturday, challenged her predecessor and 2015 governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in Adamawa State, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, to “explain to Nigerians what happened to billions of funds and assets recovered from suspects under him, with no records or documentation.”
While cautioning him to stop using her name ‘anytime he needs public attention or sympathy’, she also described as lies, recent comments by Ribadu accusing her of ‘being part of his imaginary enemies who frustrated the nation’s anti-graft war.’
Waziri in a statement by her Personal Assistant in Brookfield Chambers, Ms. Omolara Oluremi, obtained by the PUNCH in Abuja, advised Nuhu Ribadu to stop weeping because garrulity does not heal frustration or depression.
According to her, the former EFCC chairman has always been obsessed with dropping her name into his script anytime he needs public pity or political relevance.
She said, “My attention has been drawn to a reckless and irresponsible statement credited to Nuhu Ribadu at a function on Wednesday in Abuja, where he, as has been his rhetoric since 2008 when I succeeded him as the EFCC Chairman, attempted to malign me by accusing me of being part of his imaginary enemies who frustrated the nation’s anti-graft war.
“There is also the need to remind Ribadu that before he succumbs to another logorrhea, he should avail himself a copy of the investigative report on recovered assets during his tenure as EFCC Chairman and use the opportunity of the next naming ceremony or birthday party, to explain to Nigerians what happened to billions of funds and assets recovered from suspects under him, with no records or documentation. He should be grateful to me that I cleaned his mess by creating an Assets Forfeiture Unit to put the records straight and do things rightly.
“If Nuhu Ribadu is yet to face the reality that EFCC is a Federal Government agency and not a personal estate of anybody eight years after, I find it compelling to remind him, otherwise one day he would wake up to blame me for his defeat in the 2011 presidential election and even his pathetic outing in the 2015 governorship election in Adamawa state despite the slush funds deployed to ensure his victory at the polls.”
