Presidency Rubbishes Ribadu Committee Probe Report

The Presidency on Thursday
rubbished the Mallam Nuhu
Ribadu-led Report on Petroleum
Special Task Force. It said the
report was incomplete and
incapable of indicting anyone.
At a press conference in Abuja,
President Goodluck Jonathan’s
Special Assistant to the President
on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin
Okupe, based his criticism of the
report on one of its paragraphs.
Okupe said the paragraph “is an
obvious DISCLAIMER (emphasis
his) issued by the committee on
the entire report, makes it
impossible under our laws to
indict or punish anyone except,
and until, the Federal
Government fully verifies and
reconciles the facts as
recommended by the committee
in its submission to the
government.”
According to Okupe, the
offending paragraph in the
report says, “Due to the time
frame of the assignment, some
of the data used could not be
independently verified and the
task force recommends that the
government should conduct
such necessary verification and
reconciliations.”
Okupe lambasted Ribadu for the
politicisation of the report. He
alleged that there was a major
public disinformation campaign
which, he said, was calculated to
overheat the polity and incite
Nigerians against the President
because of the report.
Okupe said, “For instance on his
Facebook page a while ago,
Mallam Nuhu Ribadu remarked
that he resisted overtures to
make him compromise the
report and rather than
compromising the report, he
stayed on the side of the
Nigerian people.
“His claim of an overture to him
to compromise the report is
perfidious and false. We
respectfully enjoin Mallam Nuhu
Ribadu to be patriotic enough to
name the proponents of this
compromise.
“If Ribadu claims that to be
serving on the committee he is
on the side of the Nigeria
people, on whose side is
President Jonathan whose idea it
was in the first place to set up
the task Force and approved the
appointment of Mallam Ribadu
as chairman of the committee?”
When contacted, Ribadu said he
was out of Abuja and would
react appropriately when he
returns.

This is what we have all being waiting for....