Malam Nuhu Ribadu’s decision this week to contest for the office of President on the platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) was informed by a clear understanding of the political history of this country, the social forces in contention presently, and what is needed to change the way we play politics. Nigeria’s elite class, politicians and military officers alike, were for a long time obsessed with crude power and how to seize it through any means, fair and foul. When they bothered with politics, it was simply another instrument with which to take power and use it for their own private benefit, never for the public good. The needs of the ordinary people were never taken into consideration. Indeed power was used to suppress the people, often pitting them against one another, and thereby preventing the country realizing its full potential.

At the heart of the Ribadu presidential programme is therefore the urgent need to bring the ordinary people of this country, for a long time banished from the vital institutions of democratic politics and policy-making, back to the front and centre of efforts to transform Nigeria for the better. This is Mallam Ribadu’s central goal. It is clear to him that the present economic and social condition of Nigerian citizens is dire and calls for practical and workable programmes that will put an end to their misery.

It is an obvious fact that corruption in the echelons of public and private sector alike has become an epidemic, ambushing all efforts to return the country to prosperity and enable her to take her proper place in global affairs. Decades of sustained underinvestment in vital infrastructure and social services, caused in part by crooked officials diverting public funds to private ends, and in part by policy incoherence, has made it difficult for the country to compete with her peers in a 21st century world characterized by rapid technological innovations and fierce competition in globalized markets. Nigeria, since the late 1970s, has regressed from an African giant to a continental laggard; the laughing stock of the world.

These and sundry national woes are regularly ventilated by our politicians in the mass media and on the campaign stump. But this is where the Ribadu presidential campaign sharply demarcates itself from the pack. Nuhu Ribadu is bringing into the 2011 electoral process three vital ingredients: hard thinking and clear policy solutions to the nation’s diverse woes; impeccable public service credentials and personal integrity unmatched by any of his fellow contenders for the presidency; and a practical strategy of bringing Nigerian youth, now a significant demographic and political force in this country, into the election process.

Ribadu’s policy platform has focused on nine significant cross-cutting themes, each addressing a pressing national challenge. The policy themes are Human Capital Development, the Economy, Infrastructure, Governance, Youth Employment, Agriculture and Food Security, Defence and National Security, Niger Delta, and   Foreign Policy. Drawing on his own practical experience as a top level public official for nearly three decades and also the expertise of some of the finest scholars, policy mandarins, and community and youth leaders in this country, Mallam Ribadu has put in place a policy programme that addresses these problems and proffers clear solutions to them.

Some politicians, experts in rhetoric, have dismissed Mallam Ribadu as just “another anti-corruption crusader” with limited experience in politics and governance. Ironically, the country has been led by the so-called experienced politicians since the return of democracy in 1999 with nothing to show for it. Of course, Ribadu is not only about fighting corruption, even though corruption is clearly our country’s number one problem. Well before his appointment as executive chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in 2003, an organization he shaped in just four years into one of the most effective corruption-fighting agencies in the world, the ACN presidential aspirant was a lawyer who as a young man in 1984 volunteered to join the Nigerian Police Force at a time the reputation of this institution was at its lowest ebb.

He went on to serve in the Force for 18 years as a public prosecutor with prosecution and conviction records that are unmatched in the 150 year history of the Nigeria Police. Ribadu was also a member of the highly commended Failed Banks Tribunal that sanitized the rottenness in the Nigerian Banking sector of the late eighties.  He was instrumental in developing the Legal and Prosecutions Department of the Nigerian Police, a unit that served as think tank and policy nerve centre of the police.

Ribadu also served in the Federal Government’s Economic Reform Team along with the likes of Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Malam Nassir El Rufai, and Obiageli Ezekwesili, from 2003 to 2007. Ribadu operated at the highest levels of government in this period, and played a key role in shaping public policy that helped bring about the economic transformation which the succeeding government proved unable to sustain. Forced into exile in 2008, Ribadu went to St Antony’s College, University of Oxford as a visiting fellow, working with such notable Africa scholars as Professor Paul Collier on policies to reverse the continent’s economic decline. He also grappled with this important subject when he was latter appointed a fellow at the Centre for World Development, a leading Washington, D.C., think tank.

Ribadu’s approach to politics has provided a fresh and appealing sense of transparency, inclusion, and empowerment that is galvanizing the country’s youth. In Ribadu, Nigerian youth see a historic opportunity to chart a new course for their country. At the centre of this mass movement of young people is Team Ribadu, an initiative that is leading efforts to draw Nigerian youth and other vulnerable social groups long consigned to the margins of national politics to its very centre.

Team Ribadu is organized from the ward level up to the federal centre in Abuja, drawing together energetic and capable youth passionate about their country in a powerful network of volunteers. These youth, from all ethnic, religious and social sections of the country have spread out implementing projects in voter education, election participation, anti-rigging measures and policy enlightenment – all designed to bring the youth vote to Mallam Ribadu who they have come to recognize as the game changer in Nigeria’s 2011 presidential election.

For the first time in Nigeria’s political history voters are being offered the opportunity of putting into office an articulate, intelligent, and thoroughly-detribalised young man who is broadly accepted in all corners of this country, north and south, Christian and Muslim. This is unprecedented. For too long Nigerian politics was marked by petty elite and ethnic squabbles, ignoring the citizens and their all-too real problems. But not anymore. Mallam Nuhu Ribadu is running for president not for himself, his family, his tribe, his region or religion, but for the common good of all Nigerians. His platform is already transforming the way ordinary Nigerians from Aba to Zungeru, from Badagry to Yola, think about power, politics and public policy.

What we are witnessing before our very eyes is the reinvention of Nigerian politics.  


By
Dapo Olorunyomi, Bashir Bello Akko, Ike Okonta, Chido Onumah