"At 53, he has been celebrated inside Nigeria and beyond for his five-year tenure as chief of the anticorruption unit, beginning in 2003.
In that time he built the unit, called the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, into Nigeria’s largest anticorruption agency, with over 1,200 employees in six offices across Nigeria. He successfully prosecuted in 2005 Tafa Balogun, an inspector general of police who had resigned. Mr. Balogun pleaded guilty to failing to declare his assets. Mr. Ribadu arrested Mr. Ibori, the former governor of Delta State, in December 2007. He prosecuted 10 prominent national public figures, including nine governors.
His reputation gained luster only after he was forced from office in 2008 and into exile after what he said were assassination attempts, after he tried to prosecute corrupt politicians. He was appointed a visiting fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington and was also a senior fellow at St. Antony’s College, Oxford."