Jonathan's Government Too Weak To Tackle Boko Haram - Ribadu
The controversial iconoclastic former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Malam Nuhu Ribadu has added his voice to the growing chorus of public outrage over the lackluster and complacent manner in which the government of President Goodluck
Jonathan is handling the national security menace posed by the shadowy Islamist Boko Haram sect.
"If I were Boko Haram, I would be very happy with the complacency...Nobody is doing anything," noted Ribadu at a lecture organized by the Nigerian Institute of Management (NIM) in Lagos. Ribadu, who is the current Chairman of the Petroleum Task Force, observed that Boko Haram has continued to wreak havoc on the country because the Federal Government has remained complacent in tackling them and curtailing their activities.
He lamented the continuous attack on innocent Nigerians by the dreaded group with the government seeming confused about the best way to go, and accused the security agencies of not doing enough to track down the terrorists, arguing that this is very sad and unacceptable.
The former anti-corruption czar explained that corruption and mismanagement were responsible for the death of institutions of national significance and pride, including the Nigerian Airways, National Shipping Lines, Steel Rolling Mills and Nigerian Telecommunication Services (NITEL).
"Poor managers that we are, we have mismanaged our natural resources, particularly the oil that is the cash cow of the national economy today, to the extent that most observers and commentators of the industry now believe oil is a curse on Nigeria.
"Development will continue to elude us if we cannot deploy a new generation of managers that will interpret the challenge of our failure as the failure of current management practices. Here then is the deal. People like us, as indeed most citizens, have an idea of the kind of community we want to live in. We know that the community must support the ennoblement of man and its resources, that it must be an empowering community of equality and justice, where values of collective and individual progress are an abiding faith.
"What we may not know however is how to confront this challenge. I dare say that this is the responsibility of those who elect to be managers among us. We can even take the initial bite by placing the qualifications of the managers we desire before the nation. It has to start at the highest level. To fight corruption, we need a leader who is not corrupt, who does not allow people around him to be corrupt, and where a Local Government chairman will not be allowed to be corrupt,' Ribadu ruminated.
Ribadu's indictment of the Jonathan administration comes in the wake of a similar scathing criticism by Mallam Shehu Sani, leader of the Northern Civil Rights Coalition and President of Civil Rights Congress (CRC), who facilitated negotiations between former president Olusegun Obasanjo and the Boko Haram family members last September. Sani told The Guardian in an interview that, Northern elements in Jonathan's administration have failed to assist the government in finding solutions to the problem of insecurity and other sundry issues.
Noted Sani: 'The only times a serious approach was made were on two occasions - the peace parley I facilitated between the former president Olusegun Obasanjo and the Boko Haram family members which took place last September and also the recent one in which Dr. Datti Ahmed was given the nod by Boko Haram to represent them in the talks.
Those two efforts failed because there were some elements on the side of the government that felt that the use of force could solve the problem. It could also be that some persons are benefitting from the huge amount of money allocated to fighting this group or there are some people who believe that the continuation of this violence and insecurity is a determinant to their relevance in the nation's political scene.'