Speaking during his 79th birthday celebration held at Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Abeokuta, Ogun State on March 5th, Obasanjo said
"Honestly, when Nuhu was handling EFCC, he handled it in such a way that people coined the saying that ‘the fear of Nuhu Ribadu is the beginning of wisdom ‘ and then the question you will ask is, how did we go down? How did we lose that? Nuhu Ribadu is still here, he’s still alive. The institution we started together is still there, but what made the institution to become a toothless bulldog? That’s the matter we have to keep looking at, so that we don’t take two steps forward, one step aside and three steps back.”