Lagos: Following Mallam Nuhu Ribadu’s unannounced appearance at the Ikeja GRA residence of the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi yesterday, P.M.News reports that security agents have made frantic efforts to locate his whereabouts in Lagos and Abuja to arrest him.
Ribadu had earlier been declared wanted by the Code of Conduct Bureau over alleged false assets declaration.
The former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), who was sent on course at the Nigerian Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, Jos, was later demoted from Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) to Assistant Commissioner of Police and subsequently dismissed by the police authorities for insurbordination.
The manhunt for Ribadu, P.M.News gathered, took the security agents to Fawehinmi’s residence in Lagos and later to some other places.The police, Immigration Service and State Security Service (SSS) personnel at the airport and land borders have been directed to spread their dragnet and arrest Ribadu.
Top security operatives were said to have made discreet phone calls to some friends and relations of Ribadu to know his whereabouts. These calls, P.M.News gathered, did not yield any positive result.Unknown to the security agents, the man they were looking for had sneaked out of the country again, using the same route he used in coming.
P.M.News gathered that when Ribadu suddenly appeared in a flowing white gown at the Fawehinmi residence yesterday evening, the few people around the house and Gani’s children could not recognise him until someone told them that was Nuhu Ribadu.Ribadu, P.M.News learnt, spent about 30 minutes with the family of Fawehinmi and later requested the family to take him to the private morgue at LASUTH to see the corpse of the late human rights activist.
He was obliged. At the morgue, Ribadu reportedly touched Gani’s hand, legs and head and spoke some words. For about 16 minutes, he stood transfixed looking at the corpse.
In the condolence register he signed at the Fawehinmi residence, Ribadu said: “I have lost a father, a friend and a mentor; but I am grateful to God for having a very inspiring relationship with Chief.
“He helped to shape my life; he made me to believe in the truth and I just have to have the courage to stand by these ideals. May his kind soul rest in peace, God will be kind to Gani because he was a kind and good man.”
P.M.News gathered that Ribadu had earlier sent a condolence message which was used in Nigerian newspapers.
Part of it read: “I regret that I am unable to be with his bereaved family and my fellow mourning Nigerians at his janazah.
I pray to the Almighty Allah to grant this honourable man aljana.”Many believed he used this as a decoy to put security operatives off his trail when he would come to pay his last respects to the man he described as his “father and mentor”.
Ribadu fled the country after alleging assassination attempt on his life.
He is currently a senior fellow in St. Anthony’s College, Oxford University, UK.