LAGOS JULY 1ST (URHOBOTODAY)-As recently as June 16th this year, Daily Trust reported that “Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has again opened up on his controversial third term bid, saying some state governors also wanted tenure extension. In an interview with Chude Jideonwo. Obasanjo had severally denied plans to seek extension of his stay in office beyond 2007, but blamed some governors as the brains behind the third term agenda”.

That was the quintessential Obasanjo! The Third-Term plot started in 2001 (yes, during Obasanjo’s first term). It was so thick that in my14-page (two pages daily) Special Series appraisal on Obasanjo’s first term for Daily Independent stable, I reported in the final offering on the last Sunday in May 2004 that a plot was on to elongate Obasanjo’s stay as President, and that it “will fail”. Yet, even in June 2023, despite the disclosures from many others, including National Legislators and top officials in that administration, such as Nasir el-Rufai, Obasanjo is still denying the obvious.

With the paragraph above in mind, we now come to Obasanjo’s sermon about Ibori concerning the false story that Ibori attempted to bribe Ribadu with all of $15m. The Urhobo Times of 18 June 2023 reported: “In response to accusations of being vengeful against him by the late former governor of Bayelsa State, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, and Ibori, Obasanjo said: Ibori was found to have misused about $200 million after an investigation by the EFCC” and Obasanjo said to him “Go and give the EFCC $150 million assuming you have already spent $50 million. When he returned, he asked, “Where should we put it?” I told you to pay the money to your state since it is yours. How do I accomplish that, he asked? I opened a Central Bank account for him.

Afterwards, he returned and advised me to open Central Bank accounts for each state if he just deposited funds into the Delta-related account at the Central Bank. Which I did. Said Obasanjo.

When Nuhu Ribadu arrived, I told him to deposit the $15 million in cash in their account at the Central Bank because he believed he was being cunning. We kept looking at it after that. He was so hunted down and taken to London, where he was put in jail. Therefore, if that was revenge, I would encourage more revenge in Nigeria”.

Having shown you Obasanjo’s lies and truths with his blaming the Third Term debacle on some unnamed state Governors and not himself, he has only tried with this answer to give himself credit where none is due. I state loudly that Ibori gave neither bribery nor restitution.

When did Obasanjo become a restitution agent for Nigeria? Which law backed the actions he claimed to have taken? All these questions scream that Aso Rock cooked up the story and Ribadu played along. Did Obasanjo relate to any other person? His former Minister of Internal Affairs, the late Sunday Awoniyi, was tried by the EFCC and he never asked him to refund any money. His Police Chief, the late former Police Inspector-General, Mustafa (Tafa) Adebayo Balogun was tried by the EFCC but Obasanjo never asked him to refund any money. So, was it his great love for Ibori, a man who had refused to back Obasanjo’s re-election bid and told Obasanjo to his face, “because of your dictatorial tendencies you are unmarketable, unsaleable and unelectable” that he was disposed towards giving Ibori any soft-landing? And that was after Aso Rock had wasted billions in a failed attempt to foist an ex-convict stone on Ibori’s neck?

No, is the answer. Unfortunately, Obasanjo has always believed that he could say anything, no matter how outrageous, illogical and Nigerians would accept it. That was how, after Obasanjo had said in a 1999 national broadcast that he would want Nigerians to judge him on how well he would implement the plans outlined in the Presidential Policy Advisory Council report a Gen. T. Y. Danjuma-led Committee produced, that it would be gazetted and be widely distributed, I asked Obasanjo at the International Conference Centre, Abuja in April 2002 as he was kick-starting his re-election bid, about that report.

Instead of accepting his failures he asked me to go and get it from his late Spokesman, the late Mr. Tunji Oseni. When I reminded him that I had asked Oseni several times, and after I refused to give up the microphone to the DSS operatives trying to wrest it from me, Obasanjo turned to his campaign spokesman, Dr. Akin Osuntokun: “whether you call yourself Dr or Prof or whatever, this is the last question from the press.”  And many commentators have been praising Obasanjo for running a stunningly glorious administration. Yet, Danjuma himself said at the photo session after that administration’s last Ex-co meeting: “we failed. We failed to grow the economy. We failed to create jobs”.

The $15m bribe allegation is a result of high stakes treachery if Obasanjo’s story is interposed against statements from EFCC operatives. Or why should there be several versions of one single

event? That would only happen if some or all the parties involved are lying. Now, may we look at some of the statements from Ribadu himself, Ibrahim Lamorde, James Garba, a central Bank of Nigeria staff seconded to EFCC, Senator Andy Uba and EFCC’s lawyer, Rotimi Jacobs (SAN). Everyone contradicted every other person’s claims.

Ribadu said: “Before the end of (Ibori’s) term, we met at one of his friend’s house  in Abuja. I had brought several of my colleagues from the EFCC. They witnessed Ibori handing over to me a bag containing $15m in cash, as a pay-off which I pretended to treat as restitution for the monies he stole from his state. (Ribadu’s book: “My Story”, page 124)” Yes, restitution and NOT BRIBE; this rhymes with Obasanjo’s claim and points to his role in the scam) and he didn’t say what Ibori told him the money was for, but from Wale Adebanwi’s “A Paradise of Maggots” comes this: “Ribadu claimed that Ibori brought along a bribe of $15m in cash, ‘in two bags’, “Ribadu then called Lamorde, Ibrahim Magu and five other officers through the mobile phone to come to Uba’s house to pick up the bribe. Lamorde and his team took the two bags containing the money and drove straight to the CBN.”  Two books, two versions of the EFCC operatives present when the alleged bribery was given, and two versions of the number of bags, and as we shall see when we consider other police statements, two versions of the date the alleged bribe (or restitution) was given and when it left Uba’s house for the CBN.

Ribadu’s Abuja statement of 12th December 2007: “The money was collected in my presence at Dr. Andy Uba’s house on the 26/4/07 by Lamorde and his officers and deposited in the CBN Abuja branch on the same day”. Yet, in the London statement of August 26, 2009, Ribadu claimed: “On that day…my staff on that occasion would have included EFCC Head of Operations, Ibrahim Lamorde and EFCC Officer James Garba, (now it is no longer the seven officers mentioned in the book as quoted above but just two operatives) James (Ibori) was there and his servant or driver brought out the money from the house, in two (2) massive sacks containing U.S. $100 dollar bills. The bribe was made on 26th April 2007?.

First on date, Ribadu’s 2007 Police statement claimed the date was 25/4/07 but this changed by a day in the London version. On who handed out the alleged money to the EFCC, and those present, Lamorde further contradicted Ribadu saying that on “25th April” Ribadu told him that “there was the sum of $15 million (USD) in cash given to him and the Commission by James Ibori” (so the money was for EFCC and not Ribadu). Garba supported this version, saying that the money was there in Uba’s house on the 25th April 2007, and he was directed by Lamorde to collect the sum and deposit at the CBN, so he wrote an authorising letter which Lamorde signed – for Garba to deposit the money that same 25th April 2007.

Garba said: “but I could not make the deposit that day because it was already late to do so”.  Ibrahim Lamorde, also contradicting Ribadu, maintained that the money was already in Uba’s residence on 25/4/07 and Ribadu “directed that I should make arrangements to collect it. So on 26 -04-07, myself and Mr. James Garba, (just two operatives, not seven as Ribadu claimed, and obviously excluding Ibrahim Magu) accompanied by Police escort proceeded to Mr. Uba’s residence. We collected the money”. So, from Lamorde’s statement, Ribadu and Ibori were not there. They just collected the money from Andy Uba!

About Ibori’s presence in Uba’s house when EFCC collected the alleged bribery, Garba contradicted Ribadu; “In the compound, I saw Mr. Andy Uba and he directed some men, to carry a brownish long bag, very heavy, into the booth of the Director’s (Lamorde) car. This happened after the Director and Uba had exchanged greetings on our arrival to Uba’s house”.  So Andy Uba directed the operations, said Garba!

Ribadu claimed in his London statement that he never questioned Ibori over the alleged bribery, because he enjoyed immunity until he left office on May 29, 2007. If so, why didn’t the EFCC raise that question when an investigation team questioned Ibori on 4th July 2007 or even at Ibori’s arrest? Till this very moment, EFCC never questioned Ibori about any alleged bribe because there was no bribe.

EFCC’s lawyer, Mr. Rotimi Jacobs (SAN) even contradicted himself: years after he had charged Ibori in Federal High Court, Kaduna, that EFCC collected the alleged bribe from Andy Uba’s house, he changed the story at an Abuja High Court that determined that the money should be permanently deposited at the CBN; he said the money came from unknown agents of Ibori. And if the EFCC was so sure that it collected the money from Ibori, why did it institute the suit to determine who should keep the money?

Who can explain why a Ribadu would have been given an advanced notice of a bribe and he would not use any device, even ordinary mobile phone, to record it? Yet, on page 103 of his “My Story; My Vision”book, Ribadu claimed a woman attempted to bribe him “during a meeting in a private house and the conversation was recorded without her knowledge”. That was in 2003, so why did he not repeat the procedure in 2007?

Lastly, at Protea Hotel, Ikeja Lagos, Ribadu, as Action Congress of Nigeria’s presidential candidate for the 2011 election, Ribadu said Ibori did not bribe him as Mr. Ikechukwu Amaechi reported in a

national newspaper, and challenged Ribadu to react if he had been lied against. The challenge still stands. Several other journalists, including Steve Nwosu of the SUN and Tunde Abdulrahman then of THISDAY were there.

Specifically, on the bribe allegation at the Asaba Court, comes this from Justice Awokulehin’s ruling: “Count 66 Charges the 1st Accused/Applicant with making a cash payment of S15,000,000 (Fifteen

million Dollars) to the officials of the EFCC in order to influence their investigations and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 15(2)(b) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2004. The evidence in respect of this charge are the witness statements of NUHU RIBADU, IBRAHIM LAMORDE and JAMES GARUBA. Their statements are to the effect that the money was collected from one DR. ANDY UBA in his residence and not from the Accused/Applicant. It is shocking that there is no witness statement from the said DR. ANDY UBA who can say whether or not the 1st Accused gave him money and the purpose for which the money was given and to whom he delivered the money. August 31, 2012, the Channels TV reported Andy Uba saying “All I know about this matter is that Chief James Ibori brought some money to the then EFCC chairman, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu. The details of the transaction were undisclosed to me at the time. The money was handed to Mallam Nuhu

Ribadu who invited his then Director of Operations, Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde, to fetch it”. That is another contradiction because four years earlier in both Kaduna and Asaba Federal High Courts, Ribadu,

Lamorde and Garba had said that the money was collected from Andy Uba, in his house, and Ibori was not there. So much for this afterthought from Obasanjo’s former Man Friday.

Vanguard