In 2007, Nuhu Ribadu as the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC) demonstrated that certain things are not up for sale: integrity and service.
There was a princely $15 million all for him. He turned his back on the graft that was before him on a platter by a governor of Delta state that will end up bagging 13 years in a UK prison.
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The governor was the ubiquitous James Ibori. He was one of the political titans of that era. But Ribadu as a young officer simply said, no! He will go on to provide the fodder including testifying in Ibori’s corruption trial.
It is, therefore, something of a telemundo affair directed by Tigran Gambaryan, the head of financial crime at the cryptocurrency firm Binance, which was a subject of corruption investigation in Nigeria and several other jurisdictions to allege that the NSA, Mallam Ribadu asked for bribe to pursue his political ambition and to wit, quash the company’s undermining of Nigeria’s financial system.
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Perhaps no one informed Gambaryan of Ribadu’s near-impeachable history and that the price of principle cannot be dwarfed by the cost of capitulation. If anything, it is those at Binance that have been dwarfed by the implacable stance of the NSA Ribadu.
To give perspective to how culpable the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange has undermined financial integrity of several countries is to follow its trail.
In 2023, the U.S Department of Justice found that Binance was engaged in anti-money laundering, unlicensed money transmitting, and sanctions violations in largest corporate resolution to include criminal charges for an executive.
Following the finding, Binance Holdings Limited (Binance), pleaded guilty and agreed to pay over $4 billion to resolve the Justice Department’s investigation into violations related to the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), failure to register as a money transmitting business, and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
As recent as January 2025, French authorities deepened their investigations into Binance on suspicion that the exchange broke European money laundering and terrorist financing laws.
A public prosecutor disclosed that a judicial investigation into Binance has been opened as it was “likely to have assisted in habitual money laundering… in particular drug trafficking and tax fraud.”
According to the prosecutor, the potential offences were “committed in France but also… in all countries of the European Union.”
For a company with such a track record of illicit funds flow and aiding terrorists, Gambaryan’s canary allegations should be discountenanced for the irritating falsehood that it is as per the NSA Ribadu.
Mr Ogbeche, a former chairman of the NUJ FCT, writes from Abuja.
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