Don’t sweep Ribadu committee report under carpet – NLC, others

November 5, 2012 by Niyi Odebode, Fidelis Soriwei, Olalekan Adetayo and Success Nwogu

 

President of the NLC, Mr. Abdulwahed Omar
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Organised Labour on Sunday reacted to the controversy surrounding the report of the Nuhu Ribadu Petroleum Revenue Special Task Force, which was submitted on Friday.

Advising President Goodluck Jonathan against sweeping the report under the carpet, the organised labour called for the investigation and prosecution of those indicted in it.

It urged the President to ignore a former Head of Service, Steve Oronsaye, and Mr. Bernard Otti, who were opposed to the report.

Also, the Action Congress of Nigeria said the controversy that greeted the submission of the report was a ploy by the Federal Government to discredit the report.

Labour leaders urged the President to ensure that the report, which they considered critical to the resolution of corruption in the country’s oil sector, was treated with seriousness.

The President of the Nigeria Labour Congress and the Secretary General of the Trade Union Congress Mr. Abulwahed Omar, and Chief John Kolawole, said it was in the interest of Nigeria that the report was not swept under the carpet.

Omar said the report uncovered serious frauds in the oil sector.

In a statement in Lagos on Sunday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the ACN said the decision to appoint Oronsaye and Otti, to positions in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation while the task force was still working on its assignment was “a deliberate booby trap”.

It said if the Federal Government did not have any ulterior motive, it would have waited for the task force to complete its assignment before naming Oronsaye into the board of the NNPC and Otti as the Director of Finance of the same body.

The party stated, “Alternatively, both men should have resigned their membership of the committee the moment they were given the plum jobs to avoid the apparent conflict of interest.

“The fact that they stayed on, only to disparage the report of the task force so openly and ferociously at the end, is the clearest indication yet that they were meant to play that exact role of spoilers.”

It said attempts by the duo to denigrate the report showed that they must have been acting a well-prepared script.

The ACN stated, “All that these two men needed to have done, if indeed they did not agree with the report of the task force, was to write a minority report and present such to the President, instead of engaging in theatrics as they did at the presentation, right in front of the whole world.”

Meanwhile, the Presidency on Sunday faulted the ACN’s claim that Federal Government had an ulterior motive in setting up the task force and also “deliberately sabotaging” its work.

Presidential spokesman, Dr. Reuben Abati, in a statement, said nothing could be farther from the truth than the claim by the party’s National Publicity Secretary.

Abati said the ACN’s statement fell into a familiar pattern by the party and “its lying Lai to seek every opportunity to insult President Goodluck Jonathan.”

The NLC leader, who said the congress would make a comprehensive response on the report, added that it was not the responsibility of anybody to disagree with the findings of the report.

He said if Oronsaye, had any observation about the report, it shouldn’t have been made in a way to cast doubt on the good intentions of the report.

Kolawole said Oronsaye and Otti did not have any cause to complain if it was true that they boycotted meetings of the panel as openly alleged by Ribadu before the President.

SOURCE: The Punch - Nigeria's Most Widely Read Newspaper 5 November 2012