If Jonathan Give Me The Mandate I Will Catch Subsidy Thieves –Ribadu

Since president Goodluck Jonathan has admitted that there is too much corruption going on in government and even summoned an unprecedented meeting to check the ugly development, the pioneer chairman of the EFCC, Malam Nuhu Ribadu has given the government a positive challenge.

He said the issue is not as complex as people are making Nigerians to believe and insisted that it won't take him more than 7 days to deliver if given the mandate to recover the stolen subsidy funds.

Malam Ribadu, who gave the assurance while speaking at the office of the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission in Abuja, blamed the subsidy fraud on the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPRA) that released Nigeria's money but could not account for it.

He submitted that as an intelligence chief, he would simply checked the PPPRA's letters of credit and bill of lading to identify and apprehend all those benefited from the fraud. “Most of the problems we are talking about today are failures of regulation or regulators. If the management of PPPRA did its work, nobody will take one penny from government if those agencies do not allow them.

“If I was to handle this subsidy I would just catch PPPRA. I will bring out each one of them and in one week I will get the people responsible because the gatekeeper is the one in charge. I will just get them because nobody will make one penny from the subsidy unless PPPRA allows it. Every single person who benefited
from subsidy I can assure you public officers gained three times more.”

Ribadu condemned the primitive accumulation of wealth by the Nigeria elite and its futility, adding that “in life, you don’t need to have everything because if you die and leave it for your kids, they may misuse it.”

He also revealed that the Taskforce on Petroleum Revenue which he chairs would soon present its report to the Ministry of Petroleum Resources.