Prince Tony Momoh, a former Minister of Information on Tuesday said former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Nuhu Ribadu, founding Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) destroyed Nigeria’s democracy by barring certain politicians from participating in the 2007 general elections without recourse to the rule of law.
In an interview with DAILY INDEPENDENT, Momoh also accused Ribadu of breaching the EFCC Act which stipulates that he should charge alleged corrupt persons to court after completing his investigations.
However, Momoh said Ribadu upon completion of his investigations handed over the case files to Obasanjo, who in turn set up committees to determine who should be pardoned or who is to be investigated.
He said based on the recommendations of the committee, many eligible politicians were barred from contesting election in the country owing to Obasanjo’s personal judgement without any court pronouncing them guilty.
He further stated Oby Ezekwesili, co- founder of the BBOG campaign widely regarded as Madam Due Process was also a member of the committees set up by Obasanjo that barred politicians from contesting.
“In my view, he destroyed Nuhu Ribadu because I wrote that Ribadu had been led astray. Everybody like Ribadu because of what he did in EFCC. In his investigations, the EFCC Act said he should go to court and prosecute but Ribadu collected all investigations and handed them over to Obasanjo on his instructions”.
“Obasanjo on his part set up committees to address who was guilty or not. From there, it moved to another committee that decided who could be pardoned or not”.
“Based on that, they disqualified people from contesting election which was outside due process. Unfortunately, my sister Oby Ezekwesili was a member of one of the committees that disqualified politicians from contesting election. That was in the area of destroying our democracy. They just messed up our Due Process” he said.
