News

Ribadu taunts Transparency International

Published

8 years ago

March 20, 2018

EFCC’s poneer chairman and former presidential aspirant Nuhu Ribadu has described the Transparency International report on Nigeria as a mere perception jaundiced with complaints from corrupt Nigerians.

As far as he is concerned, the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari is doing great in the anti-graft war.

Only that there is so much noise interfering.

And it is only natural, he said, the fight against corruption will raise many questions and debate.

He said this during an interview at an anti-corruption townhall meeting tagged ‘A spanner in the wheel of corruption’, organised by the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Foundation in Abuja.

“Fighting corruption is not easy. The more you see people are complaining, the more it means you are doing well. So it is a sort of badge of honour for those who are doing it,’ he told The Cable.

“When it is silent, then things are not happening. So I am very okay with what is going on.”

He added that the recent corruption perception index released by Transparency International (TI) does not address the progress made in the ongoing anti-graft war.

“TI’s report “is just a perception,” he said.

“Every single person you ask in Nigeria will say, ‘why me? Why not others.’ So that sent a message as if things are not going on properly. The moment you see these type of things happening, put your head up because you are doing very well.”

Ribadu argued there no way a government battling 4,000 criminal cases court can be downgraded on the scale of transparency anywhere in the world.

The federal government kicked in response to the last TI report which took Nigeria down a notch–from 37 to 38 out of 149 countries–despite the Africa-wide applause Buhari has got as an anti-corruption fighter.

The AU in its last summit January on Addis Ababa named him champion of anti-corruption war, the first on the continent.