Middle East & Africa | Corruption in Nigeria

A prodigal policeman returns

Can a defiant individual make a difference in the war on corruption?

|Lagos

WHILE flitting between Oxford colleges and Washington think-tanks in the past 18 months, Nuhu Ribadu (pictured) kept insisting that what he really wanted was to go home. Nigeria's former anti-corruption tsar was in self-imposed exile, having made powerful enemies while probing his country's political elite. But last month he returned, setting tongues wagging about his next move.

As the first head of Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), set up in 2003, Mr Ribadu spent four years pursuing politicians and civil servants who were embezzling the country's vast oil revenues. He was one of several youngish reformers brought into government by President Olusegun Obasanjo to shake up the corrupt political system, and for a few years they were given their heads. In particular, Mr Ribadu went after several of the country's 36 state governors. One, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, was convicted in Nigeria after skipping bail in Britain, where a police raid on his London home uncovered cash worth $1.8m.

The crusade made Mr Ribadu a darling of the West, though some said his selection of targets was politically motivated. But few Nigerians who challenge vested interests are tolerated for very long. Mr Obasanjo's reforming zeal ended in a squalid campaign to get his ruling party re-elected in 2007, at which point Mr Ribadu was deemed to be more of a nuisance than a help. He was sent on leave for a year with scant explanation. Fearing for his life, he fled abroad. Other African sleaze-busters have had similar travails. John Githongo, once the head of Kenya's anti-graft campaign, fled to Britain in 2005 after anonymous death threats.

But Mr Ribadu's fortunes have improved since Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria's new president, took office in May. Charges that he failed to declare his assets while at the EFCC were soon dropped, thus clearing the way for his return. His dismissal in 2008 from the police force was converted to a retirement with a pension.

Mr Jonathan has good reason to welcome him back. Mr Ribadu still enjoys a lot of support abroad. “Western governments and anti-corruption groups were very angry about the way the Ribadu matter was handled,” says Abubakar Momoh, a Nigerian academic who is writing a book on his country's endemic graft. “The new president wants to look magnanimous.”

At first it looked as if Mr Ribadu would formally join the president's team, but this has not yet come to pass. Some insiders suggest that he has returned to run for the presidency himself in next year's elections, though he is quiet about his plans.

It might be a pity if Mr Ribadu were to swap policing for politicking. Nigeria's campaign against corruption has stagnated in his absence. Just before he was sidelined, he had arrested seven former state governors. Since then, only one has been convicted; another who remains accused has become a senator. The charges against James Ibori, a rich ex-governor from the oil-rich Niger Delta, were dropped. When new ones were levelled this year, he fled to Dubai, only to be detained in May after Britain asked for his extradition.

The ease with which Mr Ribadu's efforts were undermined shows how Nigeria's progress still relies more on individuals than rules and institutions. When good people fall out of political favour, they can easily be ousted and their actions reversed. “In such a situation, one man's legacy can be wiped out at a stroke,” laments Femi Falana, a campaigning lawyer who has often worked with Mr Ribadu.

This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline "A prodigal policeman returns"

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