Nuhu Ribadu's Response to GEJ's call.

https://www.facebook.com/ribadu/
posts/10150680976712873
When the Nation Calls
I was greeted to numerous calls and mail
yesterday when the administration
announced my name as Chairman of the 21-
man Petroleum Revenue Special Task Force.
Given my recent political pedigree, many
inquirers naturally wanted to understand
what was happening, and whether it was
true that I was consulted and whether I
would accept the offer.
The history of my life is a history of public
service, and if we cast an honest look to the
recent protests in the wake of the oil
subsidy removal, it will be clear to all that the
biggest single victory Nigerians scored was
to put the question of corruption squarely
back on the top of our national policy
agenda.
Regardless of our affiliations, our
differences, and our engagements, it is at
least safe to say that we have a national
consensus on the deadly impact of
corruption on our march to greatness, and
on the capacity of our people, particularly
the youth, to earn a decent, promising, life.
If we would effectively isolate and defeat
this scourge therefore, we must all see it as
a preeminent national security threat. We
must see it as a war within our borders, a
war that has assumed a systemic and
endemic character, but to which all must
now urgently enlist with our different
capacities, or accept to all go down with the
ship.
At this point in my life, it is also easy to
answer the honest question if it is
inappropriate to invest my modest talents
and capabilities to my country what I have
readily offered many foreign communities,
from sister nations in Africa to far flung
places like Afghanistan. This, if nothing,
makes my decision very personal, freeing all
affiliations [social and political] of complicity,
but investing the decision also with the
unique character that when people reach
evaluations in favour of their larger
communities, it doesn’t necessarily blemish
their moral identity.
This therefore is a national call. In
answering it, I go back to the template of
my own parents who taught me that honest
public service is the greatest asset a person
can offer his community. It was the same
lesson I learnt from his biographical
example when my own father returned
home as a federal legislator in Lagos to take
job as a local council official in Yola—it is all
about the community, and it is sometimes
bigger than our personal egos.